


don't read too much into it

by TheKnittingJedi



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - Writing & Publishing, Alzheimer's Disease, Aziraphale is a publicist, Background Adam/Warlock, Canonical Character Death, Crowley is an editor, Eventual Happy Ending, F/F, Fluff, Found Family, I PROMISE IT MAKES SENSE, Implied homophobia, Ineffable Wives (Good Omens), Love at First Sight, Minor Anathema Device/Newton Pulsifer, Office Romance, Office Shenanigans, Pining, Rating May Change, She/Her Pronouns for Beelzebub (Good Omens), Slow Burn, Tags will be updated, and also everywhere else tbh, chapter count will probably go up, complicated family relationships, don't base your opinion of publishing houses on this, office mystery, or of workplaces in general, pining! at the book fair, this fic is writ in water
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-29
Updated: 2021-02-21
Packaged: 2021-02-28 01:41:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 16
Words: 77,888
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22955803
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheKnittingJedi/pseuds/TheKnittingJedi
Summary: Discovering the identity of the guardian angel who sheltered her from the rain on a dreary Monday morning won’t be easy, but Crowley (beleaguered junior editor in a London publishing house and human disaster) can’t think of anything else.An Ineffable Wives Publishing House AU.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 618
Kudos: 226
Collections: Ineffable Humans AU





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much to [seekwill](https://archiveofourown.org/users/seekwill/pseuds/seekwill), [trailingoff](https://archiveofourown.org/users/trailingoff) and [sparvierosart](https://sparvierosart.tumblr.com/) for the beta and the encouragement. I love all of you.

There is an angel on the number 6 bus.

It’s pouring rain, and Crowley usually takes her car to work when it’s pouring, but not today. The timing of the Bentley’s annual checkup couldn’t be worse.

As if the separation weren’t enough — yes, Crowley knows that proper maintenance is important and that an annual checkup is the bare minimum for a vintage car like hers —, it’s also the first day of work after the summer holidays. Poor planning on her part. Very poor planning. But it’s entirely too late to do something about it.

She waited forever for the 6 to make an appearance. “Next time I’m taking the tube,” she muttered to herself, huddling into her leather jacket. The underground station closest to her office is two blocks away, though, whereas the 6 leaves her at the building’s entrance. Add to the equation the fact that she doesn’t own an umbrella.

London isn’t a good place to not own an umbrella.

She should have taken the tube. At least the trains _existed_ , something she was starting to doubt regarding the number 6 bus.

Crowley was shivering, but was also ready to declare to anyone who asked that her posture was a precise style choice, not her body trying to preserve heat, in a last, half-hearted attempt at survival.

She let out a sigh of relief when the blasted number 6 turned the corner and rolled leisurely in her direction. Hailing the bus completely drenched her arm, and she tried to get into the bus as quickly as possible, with a little, pathetic run of shame. She would put her success rate at 25%.

And that’s when she sees her.

Crowley doesn’t believe in destiny, but she has the sensation – no, the certainty – that she’s meant to be here, at this moment. It’s something solid that settles somewhere in her chest, dislodging a few organs of lesser importance. 

The woman three rows down is looking out of the window. It’s not yet light outside, and clearly she must have woken up at an ungodly hour, but even in the unflattering bus’ lighting she is _glowing_. She is plump and soft, her loose, platinum curls forming a sort of halo around her perfect face. Even forgetting for just a moment that she’s the most beautiful woman Crowley had ever laid her stupid eyes upon, it’s her expression of polite curiosity — her plush lips curled in an absent-minded smile, as if that’s their natural shape… a resting angel face, Crowley supposes — that does it.

Crowley’s eyes are still very much in an anatomically questionable heart shape when the door closes and the bus jerks into motion. 

She doesn’t _fall_ , not properly. It isn’t falling if you don’t end up completely on the ground, right? This doesn’t qualify. But the way she scrambles for something to hold onto is so far off the realm of dignity that it could never even apply for citizenship.

She doesn’t know how it happens. She doesn’t know how she went from mentally Googling synonyms for “perfect” to use in her future journal entry, to almost ( _almost_ ) lying on the floor of the number 6 bus, which would be one of the worst places to lie down on, objectively. 

It’s because of her hair, her long, auburn mop that has fallen on her face, that she doesn’t immediately realise who’s speaking. “Oh, good Lord, are you all right?”

When her fight or flight response kicks in, it’s too late: Crowley is already pushing her hair out of the way, looking up at the other woman, terrified. “Uhm,” she says, intelligently.

If the angel is put out by her poor articulatory functions, she doesn’t let it show. And she doesn’t just lend a hand to help her up. No: to Crowley’s horror, she actually _gets up_ from her seat and places one of her perfect hands on her elbow. (Crowley doesn’t exactly see her hands, due to the situation she’s in and the poor lighting, but come on. They cannot be less than perfect. And yes, she urgently needs a thesaurus.)

When Crowley finds herself seated next to her, they’re not touching anymore, although she won’t be able to think about anything else but the warmth of her hand on her elbow and _stop right this moment, you unbelievable creep._

The screeching sound of her mental brakes drowns the angel’s words, but Crowley’s dumbfounded expression is eloquent enough to make her repeat them, with a gentle smile that makes Crowley’s throat ache. “Did you hurt yourself?”

Words, words, fast. “Hm. Don’t think so. Lost my balance, that’s all.” Well. It could have gone worse. 

And then the silence stretches for a moment too long. 

“Lucky me you were there to save me,” Crowley’s mouth spits out, before her brain can stop it. _Yeah, that’s more like it._

But the angel just smiles more broadly. Crowley’s not sure, but she thinks she spots a dimple on her left cheek, and now she wants to _scream_. “Lucky you indeed.”

So… she hasn’t fucked up? A wave of relief floods through her. She bites her lip to stop herself from making another inane statement. Maybe, if she stays _really_ still and vows never to speak again — or, at least, not until she’s off the bus —, she’ll be able to survive this without making a complete fool of herself.

Just plain survival is also fine.

The angel’s smile is fading gently, like one of those time-lapse videos of flowers blooming and wilting. Now that they’re closer, Crowley can see that the white shirt under the tan cardigan is smooth, perfectly pressed, probably starched. A little tartan ribbon pokes from under the collar, too narrow to be a proper bowtie, pulled a little too tight to be casual. It suits her.

When the other woman clears her voice and turns a little to look out of the window, Crowley realises she’s been staring. _Oh, for…_ “Do you take the bus very often?” she blurts out, because she can’t help it: her defense mechanisms are faulty, designed to make the situation worse.

The other woman wrings her hands — yes, they _are_ perfect, Crowley knew it — on her lap, a little self-deprecating smile curving her pink, soft lips, and she answers like hers wasn’t a dumb shamble of words but an actually clever question. “Not every day. Not now, at least.” She takes a deep breath, and her chest heaves in a way that makes Crowley very determined to look anywhere else, to avoid spontaneous combustion. “I have a job interview later.”

“Oh. Oh!” Of course nobody would be so shiny and perfect (there she goes again) on a bus on a Monday morning if it weren’t for an interview. On an ordinary day, Lady Perfect Angel probably looks as human as the rest of them. (Crowley has to tell herself that. Don’t look at her, please.) “Good luck. Or… you know, whatever they say.”

The angel laces her fingers together tightly. Has her smile always had this nervous edge? Crowley could kick herself for not noticing it before. She turns a little towards her on the seat. “Hey, they’ll be lucky to have you. You go in there and show them. If they know what’s best for them, they’ll love you.”

“Oh, _thank_ you.” The full force of the angel’s gratitude is suddenly directed at Crowley, and she’s relieved she’s wearing sunglasses — force of habit — even in this rainy weather, or she’d be blind, now. “This is silly, I know, but I was a bit worried.”

“Not silly,” Crowley mumbles, thrusting her hands in her jacket’s pockets and sliding down the seat.

It’s not a long bus ride to Crowley’s workplace, and although they spend the rest of it in silence, she finds herself dreading the prospect of getting off and facing an existence where the nice bus angel lady is in her past and not in her present.

She’s scowling at the familiar buildings of her workplace’s neighbourhood, even if it’s not their fault, when she hears a discreet coughing. “This is my stop, I’m afraid.”

Crowley shoots off her seat as if hit by an electric prod. She is rewarded with another angelic smile as she lets the other woman go ahead in front of her. It’s the kind of smile that could be used as currency, if its brightness could be properly minted. The kind of smile that makes you feel like a small part of your bitter, sarcastic self could be worth a damn, if nourished by its goodness for the right amount of time.

Crowley looks at the angel as she reaches the door, ready to jump off, and she tries not to let the harsh reality of their imminent separation hit her too hard.

 _She’s a stranger you’ve just met_ , she tells herself. _Don’t be an idiot about it. She probably just seems nice because it’s Monday morning and it’s raining and your standards are extremely low._

There’s also the fact that it’s raining more heavily than before, and Crowley hasn’t magically acquired an umbrella in the meantime.

With a deep sigh — and holding onto the supports, this time — she reaches the door just as the bus stops. She knows from experience that an undignified run can take her under the shelter of the building’s entrance in less than six seconds.

Maybe she’ll still manage to spend her first day in the office without having to peel her jeans off in the bathroom and submit herself to the ordeal of asking Tracy if she has a spare pashmina that she can wear as a skirt as they dry off.

She’s about to make a run for it, already prepared to defend her wardrobe choice to her other colleagues, when a car passes by too close to the sidewalk, splashing her legs up to the knees.

For a few seconds, all she can do is stare at the vehicle as it speeds away. _Seriously?_

“Oh, dear.” As soon as a soft voice behind her utters these words, the rain stops drenching Crowley, falling instead on an open umbrella that someone’s holding over her head. “Here, let’s try not to get you completely soaked.”

Crowley turns around and freezes. It seems that every time she’s face to face with the angel lady from the bus, she forgets how words work. (Not that she makes a living with them or anything.)

It also seems that, instead of running to a job interview she’s obviously nervous for, the angel is wasting her time sheltering Crowley under her umbrella. After a couple of false starts that Crowley hopes can pass off as coughs, she manages to blurt out: “You’ll be late.”

“Nonsense. I’m always early, anyway.” The angel smiles and straightens her spine, nose upturned. “Where shall I take you, miss?”

 _What the hell._ All Crowley can do is point towards the entrance of the building and follow the angel as she starts walking towards it.

Crowley can hear the angel’s heels clicking on the pavement even over the rain pounding on the umbrella and her own blood rushing in her ears. With her hands still stuffed in her pockets, she has to hunch her back to avoid hitting the umbrella with her head, but the angel looks so pleased with herself that Crowley cannot possibly tell her.

Once they’re inside, the angel closes and shakes the umbrella, still smiling. “That was quite an adventure,” she says, conspiratorially.

Crowley looks down at her own soaked boots, trying to disguise the fact she would kill to have the angel talk to her again in that husky whisper.

They are standing in the marbled hall, one in front of the other. The high ceiling makes every bit of conversation echo and reverberate. The twin lifts ring when they reach the ground floor, carrying swarms of busy people dressed in suits to their offices, to fulfill their responsibilities.

None of them is as lucky as Crowley. Or as forlorn, when she finally finds the courage to look the angel in the eye (and maybe she will ask her a stupid question, like what’s her name, where’s she doing the interview, what are her plans for the rest of her life) and sees the angel look at the enormous clock that hangs in the hall. 

Her cheeks, which were fetchingly pink until a moment ago, turn pale. “Oh, gosh, I’m not early, after all. I’m sorry, I have to go,” she blurts, and she runs towards the elevators, a White Rabbit in kitten heels.

It takes a few seconds for Crowley’s brain to reboot. She stands by a little more, her frown just a little deeper than usual. She still follows the angel as she half-runs — pencil skirt and heels are not a good combination, if you’re in a hurry — towards the elevators and presses the button a few times, shooting an impatient glance at the slowly decreasing numbers.

She’s so cute. _Goddammit._ “Good luck with your interview!” she shouts. Even the folks at the paperclip company on the fifteenth floor must have heard her. More than a few heads turn, in fact, but Crowley only cares about one of them.

And it’s worth it to be at the centre of attention, only this one time in her life, because the angel surprised smile and wave before she stepped into the elevator plays again and again in Crowley’s mind as she drags herself to her office, her boots squelching every step of the way.

* * *

Working for an imprint of one the six major publishing groups in the world — the Big Six, as they were called by people who had no time to waste with long descriptions and/or enjoyed the puzzlement in the eyes of the laypeople — has its pros and cons. 

You are expected to participate in social functions, such as the company Christmas party (where at least there was booze), but you don’t have to worry about money, since the profits from the main imprint’s bestsellers are streamlined into its poor little sisters. You can work in a fancy office building in central London instead of a basement in Croydon, while retaining a bit of the profession’s bohemian aura in the form of a faulty heating system and the widespread tendency of considering the ninth floor a sort of warehouse for old stuff — boxes full of returns, promotional cardboard cutouts, malfunctioning monitors, annoying employees and so on.

It is a nice place to be if you are a cranky introvert who still enjoyed having coworkers to needle, and that is the reason Crowley hasn’t resigned yet.

She is so focused on the screen in front of her that she doesn’t notice she has a visitor until a thick wad of paper is slammed on her desk, making her jump on her squeaky office chair.

A pair of big, black eyes are squinting at her behind thickly-rimmed glasses. 

“Oh, it’s just you, Anathema,” she says with relief, pivoting in her chair. “I thought it may be someone important.”

A sharp finger pokes her under her shoulder, making her wince. “I won’t engage in witty banter with you until you tell me what the hell you’re wearing.”

The only shawl Tracy could spare was a triangle of fringed fabric with a bullfighting scene printed on it (a souvenir from, inexplicably, Bristol). Crowley tied it around her waist after leaving her soaked jeans to dry in the office’s bathroom — far from the weirdest thing someone’s bound to find there.

Crowley leans back and crosses her legs, not caring if she shows off a fair bit of skin. “It’s a new trend, haven’t you heard?”

A scoff comes from the desk in the far right corner of the office (or rather, the former storage closet repurposed as “an office fit for two-slash-three professionals”. Someone’s idea of a joke, surely). “I should report you to HR,” Michael mumbles, clicking away at her keyboard.

Both Anathema and Crowley ignore her. “So, coffee?” asks the dark-haired, begowned entity that appears from time to time to collect Crowley’s proofs and bring them back full of squiggly markings.

As every respectable member of the publishing industry, be they overworked and underpaid junior editors or beleaguered and equally underpaid freelance proofreaders, Crowley and Anathema thrive on a diet of coffee and gossip. They see each other roughly once a week, when Anathema comes around to exchange her scribbled sheets of paper with Crowley’s pristine and typo-riddled ones, and have a long-established ritual of sneaking out of Crowley’s office to have long, unprofessional chats in the fancy break room on the upper floor.

“I have to pass, this time.” Crowley chews the end of a pencil while removing the rubber band tying the proofs together, leafing through them to assess the damage. “As someone pointed out, I’m not exactly dressed the part.”

The sound of a palm slammed on a desk in self-righteous outrage makes Anathema stifle a giggle, while Crowley grins around the pencil between her teeth. “This is one of the oldest and most respectable publishing houses in the industry,” Michael hisses. “If you can’t respect the dress code, at least you will have the decency not to make a fool of yourself… _sauntering_ upstairs in such an embarrassing state.”

“Thank you, Michael. Nobody has called me an embarrassment since the last time my mother phoned,” Crowley replies, deadpan, then turns to Anathema. “There’s an espresso machine in the photocopier room. Wait, I have coffee pods here, somewhere,” she adds, opening the top drawer of her desk and rummaging inside.

Not a minute has passed before someone knocks at the open door of the office and enters without waiting for an answer. A dainty hand with long, red-lacquered nails leaves two coffee pods on Crowley’s desk.

“Hello, Tracy.” Anathema kisses her on both cheeks.

“Hello, dearie. You always make such a racket when you open that drawer of yours,” the secretary adds reproachfully, speaking to Crowley. “Someday something’s going to bite you, you mind my words.” And she disappears again in a whirlwind of clashing pattern fabrics that somehow works perfectly on her.

“Do you think she’d adopt me, if I ask her nicely?” asks Anathema, taking the pods.

Crowley shrugs, pencil in hand, already absorbed in the marked proofs. “Let me know how that goes, I might give it a try myself. No sugar in mine.”

Anathema scoffs. “I know.”

“And take down the flyer Tracy’s hung in there for me, please!” Crowley shouts. “I can’t move!”

“Don’t you dare touch my mindfulness class program, young lady,” comes a voice from the administrative office across the hall.

“Sorry, Crowley,” Anathema yells back over the noise of the espresso machine.

“Someone’s actually trying to work, here!” Michael bursts out, louder than all of them.

Crowley is still waiting for Anathema to come back when the new trainee comes in. Though it’s a bit unfair to call him “new”, she supposes, looking at the out-of-breath kid, since he’s closer to the end of his internship than to the beginning. “Look who decided to make an appearance, today.”

“I’m so, so sorry,” he stutters, as his backpack hits the floor with a concerning thud. “The bus… with the rain…”

“I was teasing, Newt,” she interrupts him. “You should have realised by now that everyone’s always late, here.”

Michael scoffs. “That’s an oversta…”

“Where’s Beez?” Crowley interrupts her too.

Michael looks very pointedly at her screen and starts typing again. “She hasn't arrived yet.” The sound of her gritted teeth is delightful.

Crowley gives Newt a _see?_ gesture, just as Anathema comes back with two small cups, one full of a perplexingly ochre liquid, the other of inky-black coffee. Crowley brings the second one to her lips, inhaling its heavenly smell before taking a sip.

With a bit more of her senses about her, she debates whether to bring Anathema up to date with this morning’s events in front of Michael and Newton. It doesn’t sound like a good idea. 

And there’s also a weird part of her that’s not sure she wants to talk about it just yet. She wants to keep it close to her chest for a little while longer. Be the only one to know about the angel on the number 6 bus, for now.

Anathema throws her empty coffee cup in the bin and grabs the thick envelope with her name on it (or a close approximation of it. Okay, more like a capital A followed by the ECG graph of someone who should be worried about their heart’s condition). “Something I need to know?”

“Not in particular, I don’t think. But I haven’t read that manuscript personally, so tell me if there are any juicy scenes.”

Anathema rolls her eyes as Michael scoffs and Newt drops everything he had in his hands (including his phone, which is already broken anyway).

Crowley grins. “Have fun! See you in a week.”

Anathema goes away, saying hello to Michael — who doesn’t acknowledge her in the slightest — and to Newt, who drops the phone he’s just taken off the ground. Crowley smiles to herself as she reviews the proofs, determined to ignore the invisible hand that squeezes her heart when her train of thoughts veers a little too close to this morning’s events.

* * *

The next day, London is still plagued by the rain. The forecast says it’s going to be like that for the whole week.

Since yesterday night, the Bentley’s safe in her condo’s garage. Crowley takes the bus nonetheless.

She’s not disappointed when the angel doesn’t appear to be among the humanity that populates the bus. She’s not, really, don’t worry about her. It’s not like she expected her to be here. She wonders how the job interview went, though. She meant what she said yesterday: she’s positive the angel has kicked the ball out of the park, or whatever it is they say, and now she’s rocking at her new job. If she was the one conducting the interview, she would have hired her before she could open her mouth. 

Crowley is never going to work in HR.

She runs from the bus stop to the building entrance before any criminally fast driver can splash her jeans again. Once she’s in the lobby, she decides that she’s going to be late for work, today, and she heads towards the elevators. 

Everyone’s always late, in any case.

* * *

_All the way from the fifteenth floor?? (2.13 pm)_

_please dont make fun of me (2.13 pm)_

_You peeked into every office??? (2.13 pm)_

_aNATHEMA_ _  
_ _im not telling you anything ever again (2.13 pm)_

 _First: you didn’t tell me anything, I had to find out yesterday from Eric upstairs_ _  
_ _Who saw you sneaking into the main office_ _  
_ _Looking around suspiciously_ _  
_ _And then leaving without coffee_ _  
_ _(that’s what tipped him off, btw, be more careful next time)_ _  
_ _Second: I need more details about this if I am to weigh in in a constructive fashion (2.15 pm)_

_nobody asked you to (2.15 pm)_

_OH, honey. You don’t have to. I’m doing it for free._  
_Friends and family policy._ _  
_ ;) (2.16 pm)

* * *

It’s the end of a remarkably drab Friday when the editor in chief pokes her head into Crowley’s office. 

She is busy building a castle out of graphic designers’ business cards. She’s not “wasting time” in the proper sense, no matter what Michael thinks (and says out loud): it’s not her fault authors can’t be trusted to respect a deadline. And her own deadlines are so distant to be firmly in Future-Crowley’s-problems territory.

“What were you doing on the fifteenth floor on Tuesday?” Beez asks, making Crowley jump just as she was starting the third tier of the castle.

The cards collapse on the desk and she puts both her hands on them, swiveling her chair towards the door in the most nonchalant of ways. “Hello, boss. What brings you to this fair shore?”

“Nothing pleasant, as always. Answer the question.”

Despite her frequent arguments with Anathema on the subject of reincarnation — which Crowley doesn’t believe in — she finds herself a bit on the fence where Beez is concerned. She channels an inquisitor a little too well for it to be a coincidence.

Crowley clears her voice. “Industrial espionage?”

Michael stops typing and tilts her head to the side. “At the paperclip company?”

As Crowley is glaring at her, she catches Newt, who is about to pipe up, and glares at him too.

Beez sighs. She looks barely held together and ready to murder someone. Business as usual, in other words. If Crowley ever sees her looking relaxed and at ease, she’s going to assume it’s not her but her not-evil twin. “I’ll leave you time to come up with a convincing excuse. For now, I am apparently supposed to introduce our new hire to everyone, which is a waste of everybody’s time, but here we are.” She takes a step aside and beckons to someone just out of Crowley’s line of vision to come ahead.

 _Well_ , she thinks, as her stomach drops to the floor and her soul leaves her body. _Well._

“This is our new publicist, Miss Fell. I trust that you make her feel welcome in her new position, yadda yadda. You know the gist.”

Crowley’s brain — what’s left of it — registers only one in five of Beez’s words, roughly. She’s also standing, now, a decision that her body has taken without consulting her.

Because the person in front of her — _our new publicist, Miss Fell_ — is a woman who looks remarkably similar to the angel on the number 6 bus, only it can’t be, because what are the odds of that?

A pair of unfairly blue eyes lock into hers and widens in surprise. “Oh, it’s you! Fancy that.” 

Her new coworker’s voice is also very similar to the angel’s. What a coincidence. 

“Oh, you know each other. Great.” Beez’s tone couldn’t be further from enthusiasm.

Crowley looks down at the extended hand in front of her and blinks. Can it still be called panicking when all of your vital functions shut down at the same time, or is there a more appropriate term? She’ll have to ask Anathema. Proofreaders usually know this stuff.

“It’s so nice to see a familiar face,” the angel’s doppelganger is telling her, still holding out her hand, like it’s common courtesy to wait for people to suffer from blue screens of death and forget the simplest social norms.

At last, Crowley shakes her hand, and although she looks and feels like the victim of a stroke, she’ll never forgive herself if she passes on the chance of soaking in the warmth of the angel’s palm, of discovering exactly how soft her skin is. 

For a few, perfect moments, her life makes sense. Then she pulls away, waiting for _Miss Fell_ to turn her attention from her to Newt and Michael — and it seems to take ages, because she looks genuinely _happy_ to see her, like it’s a wonderful surprise and not some circumstance she’s stuck in against her will — to wipe her sweaty palm on the leg of her jeans, even if it’s rather pointless, now.

 _Well_ , her brain offers for the third time, when _freaking Miss Fell, her new coworker_ has left the room at Beez’s heels to be whisked upstairs, where she’ll be introduced to the really important people. 

Crowley takes a deep breath. And then she keeps going.

“Are you all right?” Newt asks at a certain point. He might be sufficiently aware of how the human respiratory system works to be worried about her — even if, bless him, he doesn’t look like it.

Plonking down in her chair, critically impairing its already compromised structural integrity, Crowley lets out all the air she had swallowed. It takes her almost half a minute. She’s barely aware she’s shaking. She hasn’t stopped staring at the door, the last place she saw _MISS FELL, HER NEW COWORKER._ “Well,” she croaks.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter comes with [ART](https://sparvierosart.tumblr.com/post/611309148171288576/dont-read-too-much-into-it-pt1), guys! Check out the drawings the lovely Sparvierosart made of these two dorks.
> 
> You can all come bother me on [Tumblr](https://mllekurtz.tumblr.com/), btw.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shout-out to seekwill and trailingoff for the thoughtful and thorough beta!

In the five years that Crowley’s worked at Cerberus Press, she’s tried to subtly break as many company rules as she can. She’s snatched more pencils that she can use in a lifetime; made Newt part of every decision-making process, even if he’s just a trainee; used creative nicknames on Slack that confused and delighted her colleagues equally; took exceedingly long breaks having coffee, either wasting time on the Internet, chatting with Tracy, going upstairs to catch up with the less stuck-up people at Celestial Publishings, or going all the way down into the basement, where the technical department folks were always happy to receive visitors and hear news from Outside.

Her creativity is somewhat foiled by the fact that Cerberus’ company policy is very lax. Beez — editor in chief, the ninth floor’s highest authority and main thorn in Crowley’s side — lets everyone do their own thing as long as they don’t step on her toes. The only time she raised her voice was when she caught Crowley leaving negative reviews of a Cerberus book under a pseudonym.

_(“You can’t prove it was me,” Crowley had said, when she was summoned in Beez’s office._

_Beez always kept the blinds shut and the window open, in an attempt to hide her chain-smoking habit. It was just a formality, because anyone who entered her office at any time could catch her in the act. The tiny room was thus perpetually dark, hot in summer and freezing cold in winter._

_“You used the same nickname on Goodreads and on Slack, you twat,” Beez replied, looking more disgusted than angry, crossing her feet on her desk while the computer screen cast an eerie bluish light on her black-clad tiny frame. “And there isn’t another ‘miserable_chastain’ in existence who hates_ Hard Judgement _as much as you do. If you insist on logging in with dumb, made-up names, at least be smart about it. Also, your account is deactivated until you use something more appropriate, like_ your real fucking name _. This is a work platform, not an adult chat room. Now go away, your face is exhausting.”_

_Crowley tried to look chastised and failed. “It’s an allusion. The nickname.”_

_“I don’t care.”_

_“And the book sucked.”_

_Beez rolled her eyes. “I know. They all do.”)_

She has no idea how the company stands regarding relationships between coworkers.

Not that she’ll ever have to worry. She doesn’t even know why she’s thinking about it. She certainly hasn’t been ruminating on it all weekend.

She takes the elevator all the way to the tenth floor, because she needs some decent coffee if she wants to kick Monday’s butt and not the other way around. And a pot of fresh coffee in the tenth floor’s break room beats the wrecked espresso machine in the Cerberus’ photocopier room any day.

The elevator door dings open on a hall that’s identical to the one downstairs, if you take away the empty boxes with more empty boxes inside, the faded promotional cardboard cutouts of _Hard Judgement_ — their first bestseller, ironically — and the rest of the rubbish, and you give the walls (currently the colour of regret) a nice coat of white paint. 

Crowley scowls behind the sunglasses that she has no intention of removing — all that white cannot be good for anyone’s retinas — and turns right, pushing open the opaque glass doors with _Celestial Publishings_ engraved on them in cursive.

She’s not yet reached the break room — the first door on the left — but she hears a familiar laugh coming out of it. She frowns harder. What’s Anathema doing here already? And who’s she with?

Crowley knows her proofreader friend doesn’t work only for her. She has personally introduced her to a couple of her editor counterparts from other Celestial imprints. She _knows_ it, but she doesn’t have to _like_ it.

(She would never admit to anyone, least of all Anathema, that she’s jealous. It would go straight to her head. Crowley’s always been like this — clingy, possessive — with the few friends she’s had. She knows it, she tries to rein it in, but when you find someone who accepts you for your cranky, abrasive self, you hold on to them. It’s only human.)

She enters the break room just as Anathema is saying: “... and she was, and I quote, dressed like an old lady,” and laughs again.

Anathema has the good, unapologetic, silvery laugh of a clever woman not afraid to show that she’s amused. Crowley has always liked it, but now she wishes she could turn a knob and lower every other sound in the universe except for the _other_ laugh, the startled giggle that’s coming out of Zira’s mouth, behind the fingers she’s brought to her lips.

Because, of course, Anathema is having coffee with Zira, of all people.

Crowley’s feet stop right where they are, and so does her heart. If only her stupid life had a manager: then she could file a complaint and report that it’s really unfair, that she needs time to prepare before finding herself face to face with the angel. Especially if the place where this happens is the fancy break room on the tenth floor, all white walls, designer furniture and huge windows, through which the light comes in just like that, with the right slant and intensity to make Zira’s hair look like a cloud, her skin glow, her clothes look so soft that it’s a crime Crowley is not allowed to touch them and see if that snug, checkered sweater is really made of cashmere. 

(Not that she could tell the difference, but she knows that cashmere is the really, really soft one. Or is it alpaca?)

Anathema, an empty cup on the table before her, sees Crowley and her laughs fades naturally into a smile. “Crowley! We were just talking about you.”

Crowley’s witty retort dies on her lips — she doesn’t know what she was about to say, she doesn’t usually pay any mind to it, her banter with Anathema is something that happens naturally, a background process — when she sees Zira hit Anathema’s arm lightly, and then turning her wide, innocent cornflower eyes on her. “That’s not true, she’s just teasing.”

Crowley knows Anathema is probably right — of course, the first thing Anathema does is to tell embarrassing stories about her to Zira — and that Zira is trying to save their dignity. But that means she can’t tease back, and if you take the smartass out of her, there’s not much left.

That also means she’s left opening and closing her mouth like a fish in the doorway for increasingly long seconds.

She’s rescued by the most unlikely knight in shining armour, if knights were scrawny marketing assistants barely out of their teens, and the shining armour a combination of flannel shirt and ripped jeans that wouldn’t have looked out of place at a Nirvana concert.

Crowley cries out when she’s almost shoved out of the way by the disrespectful youth, but he doesn’t give her a second glance and instead barrels through so fast that his broad-brimmed hat barely stays on his long, dark hair. “Is it you?” he asks Zira, then turns towards Anathema and Crowley. “Is it her?”

Crowley makes a helpless gesture. “She’s our new publicist. I thought Beez introduced her to everyone last week.” She could kick herself for the way she’s speaking of Zira as if she weren’t in the room.

But he’s already turned his back on Crowley and is speaking to Zira again. “Can I hug you? I really want to hug you, but I should check with you first. Personal boundaries and all. We had a seminar.”

Apparently, when Zira smiles, tiny little crow’s feet form at the corner of her eyes, making her a little more beautiful and the room a little brighter. Crowley files it all away in a private mental folder.

Zira looks perplexed but gracious. “Yes, you can.”

She’s not yet finished the sentence that he’s hugging her. “Thank you, thank you, thank you. I’m Warlock, I work in marketing. I’m so happy to meet you. You saved my life.”

Horrified, Crowley watches as Zira gingerly raises a hand to pat the boy’s back. She should step in, take the little heathen by the scruff of his neck and toss him back in the marketing department with the other young, hat-wearing freaks.

But, when Zira makes eye contact with her, she looks more amused than uncomfortable, and her smile is genuine. “I’m sure I’d have noticed, if I did. Hi, Warlock, I’m Zira.”

“I know.” Warlock sighs and finally lets her go. “I’m sorry, I just… I have been doing all the publicity work on top of mine for months. I didn’t know they were hiring.”

 _Nobody knew_ , Crowley realised. They had just assumed Warlock would keep carrying the publicity mantle along with his other responsibilities, or die trying, since the former publicist resigned (or was fired, there’s no consensus on that).

Anathema pats Warlock’s arm to draw his attention. “Hey, Yankee. Nice hat.”

“Hey, you. Still not tired of us?”

“Never. Y’all look too good to give up for a better paying job. Speaking of which, I’d better go to work.” Anathema gets up. “It was lovely to meet you, Zira. We need to do this again next time I’m around.”

“Just pop into my office and say it’s urgent.” Zira tries to wink at her and is horrifically bad at it. Crowley hopes nobody hears the noise she’s just made.

“Don’t worry, I’ve got plenty of material.” Anathema grins as she passes by Crowley to get to the doorway.

“Anathema, your proofs,” Crowley says, trying not to think about what she meant with _material_.

Anathema pats her heavy-looking satchel. “I know the drill, baby. I’ve already dropped mine and picked up yours on my way here.”

Warlock finally leaves Zira alone and follows Anathema out of the break room, shouting something about holding the lift for him. Which leaves Crowley alone with Zira, the echoes of the conversation being replaced by a heavy silence.

“So.” Crowley wills her legs to carry her to the coffee pot, which is inconveniently behind Zira herself. “Coffee. Do you want some?”

When Zira shakes her head, her platinum waves follow the movement, brushing her shoulders. There’s no way that’s her natural colour. There’s no way they feel as soft as they look. Crowley knows she’ll never find out, she doesn’t even want to, she couldn’t touch them to save her life. Her dry, bony hands that are never still, always stained with something, fingers and wrists always cracking and popping, nails unkempt, always chewed to the quick. No, they have no place near that fluffy, cherubic perfection.

“No, I had tea at home,” Zira says, yanking her back to planet Earth. “So, you’re a coffee person.”

In her haste to get her caffeine fix, Crowley left her mug downstairs, so she has to use a disposable cup, which is less than optimal. She has to focus real hard as she pours, because she feels a bit unanchored right now. “Too predictable?”

“Yeah.” Zira’s tone is… strange. Dreamy. 

Once she’s poured her coffee — without spilling a drop, the coffee gods must be in a good mood, today — Crowley turns towards Zira. 

Her cheeks are flushed in a way that makes Crowley’s fingers tighten dangerously around the cup. “Er, not that there’s anything wrong with that! But you, working with books, all brooding, dressed in black… It’s in character,” she finishes, a little out of breath.

The first sip of coffee always turns a switch inside Crowley. The caffeine cannot be in her system, not yet, but there’s something about the strong smell and the bitter taste that just slaps her awake. Or maybe it’s just placebo. (Also, the flustered gesturing that accompanied Zira’s speech is the cutest shit she’s ever seen.) In any case, she feels a good 25% more like herself. “Nobody had called me ‘brooding’ yet today, but it’s not yet 10 AM.” She smiles at Zira’s guilty expression and decides to have mercy on her. “How’s work going so far?”

Zira lets out a sigh, smoothing out the creases on her tartan skirt. Crowley follows the motion and keeps very still, as if by doing so she could hide all the Thoughts inspired by that. _Can you get a fucking grip on yourself?_ “Uh, well. So far, being hugged by a weirdly-dressed American kid is the strangest thing that’s happened to me.” Then she adds, “But it’s not yet 10 AM.”

They smile at each other and Crowley feels the tension slipping away. Look at her, making small talk with a stranger she’s hopelessly smitten with. A small step for a woman.

“Good to know I saved a poor kid’s life, or at least his job,” Zira goes on.

“Nah, he wouldn’t have quit. Warlock needs the job to live in the UK. But, uh… I should probably let him tell you his life story.” Crowley can picture Anathema balking at her restraint, and shoos her off her thoughts. She doesn’t want her to think that Cerberus is a disreputable den of gossip right off the bat. The later she figures it out, the better. “I have a soft spot for him. I used to dress like him ages ago, but unironically. Apparently, grunge fashion is ‘making a comeback’,” she adds, making air-quotes with the hand that’s not holding the cup. “Youths.”

Zira smile widens. “Youths, indeed. But I like old-fashioned things.” She looks down at herself, to make her point. “I was so relieved when I met Tracy.”

Crowley frowns. “’M not sure I follow.”

The tops of Zira’s cheeks are bright red again. She looks like she’s said more than she wanted to, but she makes a valiant effort to explain. “With the way you all dress, I initially thought black was a sort of uniform.”

Crowley almost spits out her coffee, then she damn near suffocates on it to keep herself from laughing.

“You can’t blame me!” Zira says while this is all happening. “At least Tracy’s… colourful.”

Taking a paper napkin or two to fix the damage, Crowley shoots her an incredulous look. “You’ve met Michael, right?”

“Yes, she seems…” Zira’s expression must mirror her mental journey through increasingly inappropriate adjectives, because it looks more and more troubled. “Professional,” she lands on eventually.

Crowley takes another sip of coffee, leaning back into the counter, doing her best imitation of someone who’s perfectly at ease. “She’s a stickler. Which makes her a great managing editor and a terrible coworker.”

“Oh, I’m sure she’s not so bad, once you get to know her.” Zira ignores Crowley’s skeptical glance and looks at the clock on the wall (analog, chromed, with sleek black hands and no numbers, which are probably considered too common). “I should probably get to work. First day and all. They said someone was supposed to show me the ropes, and I think it’s supposed to be Warlock, so I’d better go and…”

“I can teach you the basics,” Crowley hears herself say. “I mean, not the publicity part, can’t be trusted with that. But, you know. Until Warlock gets back. I can show you how to turn your computer on, at least.” She has to do it, she reasons. She can’t leave Zira into the less-than-tender care of Shadwell from IT on her first day of work.

Zira beams at her. “Won’t you be missing your own work?”

Crowley laughs and finishes her coffee in one long sip, rinsing out the cup in the sink and throwing it in the recycling bin. “Let’s go.”

She lifts her hand to touch Zira’s shoulder and changes her mind at the last second. She also catches herself just before calling her “angel,” shaking her head when she’s sure that Zira can’t see her. She needs a guardian, someone ready to slap her wrist every time she’s about to embarrass herself, something that’s happening with alarmingly increasing frequency.

In that spirit, she doesn’t offer to call the lift for just one floor. She risks a glance at Zira’s shoes to see if she’s still wearing heels and sees a pair of low two-toned Oxfords that show off her ankles, which are surprisingly delicate and dainty and _oh, my God, stop_. If Crowley falls down the stairs, she’ll have nobody to blame but herself.

When they reach the ninth floor, they turn left to Zira’s tiny office, which is across the hall from Crowley’s, on the opposite end of the L-shaped building. 

The publicity office — or rather the broom closet that was christened so since before Crowley’s arrival — has been vacant for months. They used it as an unofficial storage room, and for a few, glorious days back then the premises of Cerberus Press had almost been tidy. Then the clutter claimed both the old publicity office and the rest of the floor, and everything went back to normal.

Crowley lets Zira enter first. It’s _her_ office, after all. She doesn’t have to know that Crowley regularly snuck in here to scroll on her phone in peace, and sometimes with a pack of cigarettes, when things got really stressful.

When she follows Zira in, Crowley glances at the small balcony (the only luxury this shoebox has, apart from blessed isolation) and wonders if there are any cigarette butts she forgot to throw away, or if the cleaning company got them out before Zira arrived, all sunshine smiles and fluffy hair and beige brogues and nice stuff neatly arranged in a cardboard box.

Hands stuffed in her too-small pockets (she wears men’s shirts, but there’s no way she can pull off men’s trousers as well), Crowley looks around, taking in the almost empty bookcase that runs from floor to ceiling and from one wall to the other, the large, polished desk with a sleek, black landline, a monitor which is slightly more up-to-date than Crowley’s, a pen holder with only a pen and a pencil inside, a blank notepad, a small plant with droopy leaves and a tiny bowl full of wrapped candies.

That’s it. No photographs or knick-knacks, no stacks of books, heaps of fliers and takeaway leaflets, no old receipts she forgot to file as expense accounts and all the other specimens that litter Crowley’s desk (the list’s incomplete, it would probably take a geologist to get to the bottom of it, at this point).

“I’m afraid I have only one chair,” Zira says. “You can use it.”

Crowley looks at her and then at the ergonomic chair (she’d use it all wrong, she’s sure). “I’m going to snatch one from upstairs,” she says, absent-mindedly, and blinks when Zira gasps. 

“You’ll do no such thing! I’ll ask and wait for another chair.”

Crowley grins. “Yeah, and in the meantime…” She’s interrupted by her phone chiming. A notification appears on it. “Oh, shit.”

“What is it?”

Crowley turns off the phone’s screen. Then she turns it back on and deletes the notification. If she had insecticide on hand, she would use it. “I’m sorry, I have a meeting.”

Zira grimaces. “It doesn’t seem like a good thing.”

Crowley carefully schools her expression back to its unimpressed default setting. “Go find Warlock. Tell him you’ll call me if he doesn’t behave, that should scare him all right.”

Zira gives her a soft smile, as if Crowley had just said something very sweet instead of a veiled threat. “You know what? You can tell me everything at lunch.”

Something in Crowley’s brain short-circuits at that. “Lunch?” she repeats, making it sound like it’s the first time she’s heard the word.

“Yes, assuming the meeting will be over by then. I can wait for you, I don’t have plans. But maybe you do! That was presumptuous of me, I’m sorry.”

Crowley cannot begin to tell her how much she’s wrong about her having plans for lunch. Lunch is not something she’s ever _planned_ , just an occurrence that she sometimes takes notice of, like lunar eclipses. She usually spends her break eating at her desk or forgetting about it entirely. “No! I’d be happy to. I’ll come pick you up at one.” She’s reasonably sure the meeting will be over by then. If not, she’ll give her decisional power to Newton and flee. He can’t say no to her. Literally.

As she’s making these plans, a part of her brain is trying to process the fact that Zira seems genuinely happy at the idea of having lunch with her. “Perfect! This way you can show me all the good places to eat around here.”

Those words are a cold shower. “Cool. Later, then.” Crowley nods and goes away before she can make a fool of herself. Maybe she can pretend to look up relevant information during the meeting and Google nearby restaurants.

* * *

“... and then he _hugged_ me.” Crowley doesn’t know why she’s laughing, when the tale is not really funny to begin with.

Okay, it’s probably because Zira seemed to find it very entertaining. She winced in sympathy when Crowley described the art director the company has foisted on them, a 6-foot-tall man in a suit and tie with the smile of a salesman and the attitude of someone who owns the building and every person in it (the latter is partially true). Her eyes lit up at the mention of the way Michael got up to greet him and kiss him on both cheeks.

(Crowley bets it’s because Michael wants a position upstairs, and sucking up to Gabriel Goddard — the eldest son of the CEO — is a good insurance policy.

It’s not just a figure of speech, there’s an actual bet going on. The details are noted down on a piece of paper hidden in Tracy’s desk, marked as _Business Expenses Inconsistencies 2009_. While Tracy thinks they’re just birds of a feather, Anathema suspects there are non-work-related shenanigans going on, and poor Newton, after being needled by the three of them, finally weighed in saying that maybe Michael just wants a friend. Despite the boos and the raspberries this opinion was welcomed with, Crowley had to squash the beginning of a wave of sympathy for Michael.)

Zira laughed when Crowley described how Beez almost tore in half the test prints Gabriel showed them. “I told you to make the title bigger,” she had growled, almost losing her legendary composure, especially when Gabriel told her he knew, he had actually increased the font by 0.5.

“He caught me by surprise.” Crowley’s gravity is undermined by the fact that she cannot stop smiling. What she will never tell Zira is that, before lunch, a part of her had been genuinely upset by that. She is fond of her personal space. She managed to greet Gabriel with a handshake when he arrived, but by the end of the meeting she was too tired to dodge him. “I played dead. It was an all-around unpleasant experience.”

Zira dries a tear from her left eye. They are sitting in a Brazilian-Japanese fusion restaurant a five-minute walk from the office. Zira climbed on her high stool with surprising elegance, despite her close-fitting skirt. She doesn’t have an hourglass figure so much as she’s entirely made of round, soft curves, not a straight angle in her. “I’m sorry, I’m not laughing _at_ you. I’m scandalised on your behalf, I truly am.”

With her elbows on the metallic surface of the small, round table, Crowley tries her best not to lean too obviously towards her. “I’ll have to believe you.”

Dabbing at her lips with a napkin, Zira looks at her. “How was the previous art director?”

Crowley groans with her whole body, throwing her head back and almost falling off her stool. “Adam was a _godsend_. He was this super cool kid, always traveling from one place to the other, and he was so easy to get along with. He looked fourteen, but he was a hell of a lot more professional than that… clown,” she ends, charitably changing the epithet at the last minute.

Zira nods. “Why did they let him go?”

“They wanted to have one art director for the whole group, and when your boss’s son has won awards in the area they’re hiring in… There was only one way things could go. Warlock cried on Adam’s last day.” Nobody here needs to know that Crowley spent the entire afternoon smoking morosely on Zira’s office’s balcony.

It’s still surreal to think about that room getting overhauled and converted into a clean, efficient work station, one that had a soft, blonde, smiling angel inside of it. “How are you here?”

Lifting her preternaturally blue gaze from the dessert list on the table, Zira gives her a perplexed look. “We walked?”

Crowley snorts. “No, I mean at Cerberus. Why didn’t you apply upstairs?” Because that’s where she so obviously belongs, and where she will definitely end up should there be an opening. The idea of having Zira on her floor, on her _side_ , seems like cheating. What is an angel doing in Hell? It looks too easy, and Crowley doesn’t trust easy.

Zira’s expression is hard to read, also because she is looking at the menu again, avoiding Crowley’s eyes as she speaks. “There were no vacancies at Celestial,” she says, in a matter-of-fact voice.

“And how did you find out about the one in Cerberus?” Crowley’s certain it wasn’t advertised. The company would have sent a general email, word would have gotten around. For a position like that — ungrateful, yes, but still prestigious — they wouldn’t hold the one interview, hiring the first candidate that applied. 

Crowley doesn’t care about company policies, true, but she isn’t an idiot.

And neither is Zira, apparently, judging from her apologetic smile. “Word of mouth.”

 _Fine, keep your secrets._ Crowley smiles ruefully, too. “Dessert?” she asks, changing the subject.

Zira pouts. “It’s too late, I’m afraid.”

“Come on, we can take it with us back to the office.” Crowley is proud of herself for thinking about it, because it earns her another of Zira’s blinding smiles. She can’t stop feeling that each second they spend together is unearned on her part, and there’s definitely something dodgy going on behind Zira’s presence at Cerberus Press. But maybe it’s enough to be on a lunch date — to be _at lunch_ , you moron, what are you doing, thinking about _dates_ — with her, to chat with her and let her exorcise all of Crowley’s troubles with a laugh.

Yeah, that’s enough. She’ll enjoy it while it lasts. And after that, at least, she’ll have her sad balcony breaks again.

* * *

“Your first job,” Beez says to Zira, the moment she and Crowley come out of the elevator.

The editor in chief thrusts a thick folder into Zira’s arms, who wobbles a little under the sudden weight.

Crowley reads the name handwritten in black marker onto the folder cover and groans. “Oh, come on.” She spreads her arms when Beez shoots her a warning glance, the sort that says _this does not concern you, you better stay out of it, and your lunch break was over half an hour ago_. “Seriously? Duke Ligur?”

“He’s our main author and she’s our publicist. I don’t know what you expected me to do.” Beez turns to Zira. “You may know him as the man behind the masterpieces _Hard Judgement_ and _Inside the Truth_.”

Adjusting her hold on the folder, Zira blinks. “I’ve heard of them, but…”

“Great. Everything you need to know is in the folder.” Beez starts to go away, but she points her scowl at Crowley one last time. “And you can give our new hire a rundown, since you know the author so well.”

“I really wish I didn’t,” says Crowley, but if Beez has heard her, she doesn’t comment. When she turns to Zira beside her, she sees that the Ligur folder is almost getting the better of her and she unceremoniously yanks it out of her arms. “Let’s go to your office. I’ll run you through it.”

“Crowley? What kinds of books are those?” asks Zira as she follows her, concern clear in her voice. “Are they crime fiction or adult books?”

“Yes. Now listen.” Crowley puts the folder down on Zira’s desk and closes the door behind her when they’re both into the room. “Ligur is what keeps our boat afloat. It’s not ideal, but it is what it is. Roughly half of our profits come from his books, and he has power in here. Not, like, executive or whatever, but he has special treatment, you know what I mean? Even Beez acts all deferential around him. She’s never insulted him once to his face. You’re sure you’ve never read him?”

Zira shakes her head. “Will that be a problem?”

“Well, I think it does you credit, but it’s probably best if you’re familiar with his work before meeting him. I’ll give you my copies, and in the meantime we will figure out your schedule and timeline.”

Crowley is so focused on the plan taking shape into her brain that she doesn’t notice Zira reaching out to her until she feels warm, smooth fingers closing on her left wrist, and her brain crashes.

“You are so kind,” she hears Zira say, far off in the distance. “You don’t have to do this on top of your own work. I will figure it out. It’s my job, after all.”

Crowley clears her throat, trying to reboot as fast as she can. “You just cannot face Ligur unprepared. And ‘my own work’ at the moment would be editing his latest manuscript, so it all evens out.” When Crowley shrugs, the movement makes Zira’s hands drop and their fingers brush. She will examine her body’s reaction to that when she’s alone. Or, you know, maybe never. “Welcome to Cerberus Press. Happy first day of work.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you like the publishing house setting and you happen to know Italian (or Spanish, the only translation I've found), I cannot recommend Alice Basso's books enough. They're witty and funny and deep and begrudgingly romantic, which is pretty much everything I'm trying very hard to do here.  
> If you're into workplace shenanigans and you haven't read Atalan's [One Night in Bangor](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20053450) or curtaincall's [i've found a way to make you smile](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20535032), then GO, for the love of Someone. I'm sure there are more workplace-based fics I'm forgetting or that I haven't read, so please leave your recs in the comments or drop me an ask on [Tumblr](https://mllekurtz.tumblr.com/)!


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the long wait! I hope the chapter's length makes up for it.
> 
> Thanks to seekwill and trailingoff: you make everything better and help me when I forget how to English.

Crowley, who — despite all evidence — is an optimist, thinks she will leaf through the proofs, solve what needs to be solved and send them by 5 PM to the company’s compositor, an old, square gentleman by the name of Mr. Tyler. (Everyone calls him “Mr. Tyler”, even his wife, or at least that’s what Crowley tells the terrified interns. Heck, even Beez calls him Mr. Tyler.) She will find the final typeset in her inbox tomorrow, mail it to the printer and check another ugly, useless book off her to-do list.

Except there are more pen and pencil markings on the proofs than there’s photocopier ink. Instead of a few wiggly lines pointing to the occasional missing comma and the unavoidable typo, the margins are now home to more than one short essay. 

_Bottom’s Up_ was supposed to be a light-hearted, unchallenging romcom, a nice break from the wave of undignified thrillers that were Cerberus’ bread and butter since the success of _Hard Judgement_ had put food (or food-adjacent stuff) on all of their tables. Crowley hasn’t read it personally, but this was a long-time author of theirs and she thought she could trust them. She was wrong.

On page four, she takes out her phone.

_you are paid to proofread books not rewrite them (2:56 PM)_

Without waiting for an answer, Crowley tosses her phone on her desk and goes back to deciphering Anathema’s scribbles in the margins. (That’s unfair: her handwriting is impeccable. There’s just _so fucking much of it_.)

It doesn’t help that Crowley’s mind is elsewhere, namely down the hall, in the little office with the balcony where a tartan-clothed, golden-haired publicist is doing the homework Crowley has given her. 

“Ligur’s personal assistant is key,” she told her earlier. “Make friends with Hastur, and Ligur will eat out of your hand. It won’t be easy, but I think that you should start with… What are you doing?”

Zira’s initial deer-in-the-headlights look was replaced by single-minded resolution as she started jotting down words on her notepad. Two pure, perplexed eyes were raised at the question. “Taking notes. What else?”

Crowley had to inhale deeply for a second to centre herself. _You’re not going to develop a one-sided, potentially career-ruining crush on the new publicist, and that’s that._ Denial was key. “Nothing. That’s… that’s actually smart.” _I’m just not used to people listening to me_ , she was about to add, but she stopped herself in time. It wasn’t a good joke. Mainly because it wasn’t a joke.

Almost an hour had passed before Zira told her she knew enough to start with, and didn’t Crowley have to go back to her own work? So Crowley returned to the Fateful Proofs of Doom (only she didn’t know it yet, she thought they would be Easy, Barely-There Work) which she is now staring at unblinkingly, wondering what would be the best way to figure out if Zira even _likes_ women, and to suggest that Crowley does, as it happens. Everyone here knows and nobody cares (“Least of all me,” Michael pointed out once, which Crowley took as a compliment). Maybe she should send Anathema forward to test the waters. No, scratch that: she has to be subtle. Casual. Indirect. Maybe she can make a remark on how pretty the new Celestial intern is, the blonde one, you know. That isn’t creepy, right?

Oh, my God, it is.

Crowley makes a grimace, with a sudden bad taste in her mouth. Her phone vibrates.

 _That book was in a terrible state. Professional integrity demanded it. Sorry.  
_ _(Who edited it?)  
_ _I would have warned you if your head hadn’t been in a particularly fluffy cloud this morning.  
_ _Xo! (4:13 PM)_

With a sick feeling, Crowley puts her phone away. She needs time to come up with the right answer to _that_ . And in this moment her time belongs to _Bottoms Up_ ’s fucked-up proofs.

Typos are not the only problem: some of the changes Anathema has made are structural. Crowley has to ping Beez and get her in the loop, which is guaranteed to earn her at least a pissed-off glance, if not a snarl.

Her boss enters the office with her eyes glued on the first hundred or so pages Crowley brought her not twenty minutes ago. “This is a rewrite. You need to tell your red pencil pusher to calm the hell down.”

Crowley’s boots are on the ground and she’s sitting with her legs crossed, in a position that was never foreseen nor deemed possible by the office furniture manufacturers. And, realistically, she wants to murder Anathema, but… “Should I? Those edits make a lot of sense.”

“’M not questioning that, just pointing out that we can’t pay her for a structural edit.” Beez tosses the pages back on Crowley’s desk, where they fan out, looking distinctly worse for wear. “I’ve made some suggestions.”

With her heart plummeting to her stockinged feet, Crowley glances at the top page and discovers that Anathema’s neat notes have been crossed out, expanded and/or sprinkled with a horrendous blue scrawl.

She looks back at Beez with mounting horror. “We need the final typeset by Wednesday at the latest. The presses are already booked.” 

“Then you better hurry. Give me those,” she adds, pointing to the pages Crowley has ploughed through in the meantime.

“That’s rough,” comments Michael once Beez leaves the office. 

Even Newton gives her a sympathetic glance, but has enough common sense to keep his trap shut.

Summoning what remains of her self-control, Crowley realigns the scattered pages Beez brought back and steels herself to restart the Not Good, Very Bad Proofs from scratch.

She makes herself focus, shutting out the office chatter as well as the person asking her if she wants tea, to whom she answers with a curt “No, busy”.

A few hours pass before she remembers that nobody ever asks her if she wants tea.

She looks at the door, but nobody’s there anymore. The office is empty. She’s alone.

Pushing herself out of her chair she was folded on, she darts into the corridor without looking at how many pages she has left, in order to minimise the chance of breaking into sobs in the near future.

The hall is empty: everyone’s gone home, except for Beez, who's still holed up in her office doing God only knows what (probably munching the skulls of her enemies). Rows of closed doors and the empty water cooler mock Crowley as she runs past them, then past the lift and into the publicity office.

Which is empty as well.

She doesn’t even have the energy to swear.

* * *

At least, the tea debacle means her brain is in no hurry to go back to sentimentally daydreaming about the angel. She’s always known it was only a matter of time before she disappointed her, too. She just hoped it would take longer than a day.

Beez sends the pages back over the course of the afternoon and she’s the second-to-last person to leave that night. She comes around the editors’ office before transforming into a swarm of bats and flying home, or whatever it is she does. “Company doesn’t pay overtime,” she says, leaning against the door.

Crowley puts down the pen she’s been fiddling with and rubs at her eyes. She could almost believe that Beez is worried for her, if she didn’t know that Beez doesn’t care about anything except her job, and if she expresses any kind of interest in Crowley is because she’s part of it. An uncooperative cog in the machine that always talks back. “I’m almost done with this section.”

“Cleaning service’s going to boot you out.”

Crowley gives her a thumbs up. Or maybe it’s a finger gun. Neither her coordination nor her eyesight are at their best, right now.

After Beez leaves her alone, Crowley crams in another half-hour of work before the cleaning service guy comes around and makes her leave.

* * *

The last dregs of sunset almost blind her when she steps out of the office building. She blinks and looks for her sunglasses. (Not on her head, not hanging from her shirt’s collar. The bag? Yes, they’re in her bag, fraternising with loose change and old receipts on the bottom. She blows on the lenses before putting them on. Still dirty, but good enough.) 

Crossing the street to reach the bus stop, she sees her reflection on the bus shelter’s glass and realises that at some point she has pinned her hair up with a pencil. She pulls it out, tossing it into her bag just as the number 6 approaches. She climbs on it and collapses on the first free seat.

It’s always difficult to make them shut up, all the words that pile and overlap in her head, when she overworks herself like this. It doesn’t happen often — it’s usually the opposite — but sometimes work likes to keep her on her toes.

It’s all Anathema’s fault, her and her perfectionist ass. Crowley’s going to give her proper retribution. Maybe she’ll offer her Crowley’s job. That’s a harsh enough punishment.

As the bus trudges towards Mayfair, Crowley realises she needs to think about dinner. She usually buys groceries on Monday afternoons. The Tesco in Curzon Street is still open, but the mere idea of going through a shopping list makes her want to cry.

No, if there ever was a perfect night for a sad ramen eaten at the kitchen counter, it’s tonight.

She still needs to buy the ramen, but she can do that. She can find the energy to buy a single box of instant noodles, if not much else. It means a short walk to the shop ’round the corner, but her legs are long. If she streamlines the process, she will be in bed by nine.

(Really, she should have known better.)

Fifteen minutes later, Crowley is browsing the aisles of the cramped minimarket, walking past rows of spices and canned edamame, crates of sweet potatoes and plantains and sacks full of grains. The familiar smells are soothing, and so is the peace and quiet. She’s the only customer at this hour. She picks the most unassuming brand of instant noodle soup she can find in the Japanese section. Dinner’s sorted.

There’s a woman before her at the check-out. So, not the only customer after all. She toys with the idea of cracking a joke about it — don’t mind her sudden need to socialise, she’s just _tired_ — when she realises the woman and the cashier are in the middle of a discussion.

As she comes closer, she can’t help but overhear.

“It’s £3.5 for everybody, madam,” the cashier is saying, patience visibly evaporating from her tone as she speaks. Fuzzy hair, freckles, short temper: Crowley has seen her before. Her name is something along the lines of Adria, if she’s not mistaken.

The woman at the check-out is short, middle-aged, unremarkable and angrily holding a small glass jar. Crowley has never seen her before. There’s an almost empty plastic bag sitting on the check-out surface in front of her. “I will come tomorrow with the money. Promise.”

“No credit. It’s the store policy,” Maybe-Adria replies, unimpressed. “If you can’t pay for it, you have to leave it.”

Coming closer to put down her ramen box, Crowley takes a closer look at the woman’s face and reevaluates her first impression: she’s not angry. She’s desperate.

“I need the tahini,” she replies, “otherwise it’s not baba ganoush.”

“I’m sorry if the law prevents you from following a recipe. You still need to pay for it or leave it here.”

Crowley sees her quiet evening waving at her as it fades in the distance. “Listen…” When the cashier turns towards her, she glances at her name tag, which says _Adra_. Close enough. “Listen, Adra. You need tahini to make baba ganoush. And this doesn’t strike me like a convoluted plot to set the shop back 3 quids and a half. Give the lady credit, just this once.”

The cashier’s face goes through all the stages of outrage, but she recovers quickly. “Do you really think we can trust people to pay us back?”

“It’s just the once!” Crowley replies, rolling her eyes so hard that she strains a muscle. “Please, it’s Monday, I’m speaking to you from beyond the grave. I just want to have something resembling dinner and pass out until morning. Give the lady her tahini and deliver us all.”

As Adra crosses her arms, Crowley catches a glimpse of the lady in front of her. She’s following the back and forth between her and the cashier like someone who went to the stadium for a football game and sees a tennis match going on instead.

“Okay, you know what?” She takes her wallet and hands the cashier £10. “I’m paying for it. Just let me go home.”

For a moment, Adra looks at her like she’s expecting it to be some kind of trick. Crowley waits, still holding out the note, counting the seconds to her final breakdown.

Then the cashier shakes her head and scans the box of noodles, reaching out to the lady. “Can I have your tahini, please.” There’s no question mark at the end of the sentence, and no fucks left in her voice either.

Which is good, since Crowley has run out of them as well. “’Night,” she says, sarcastically, grabbing the plastic bag with her groceries and taking the shell-shocked lady’s elbow, leading her outside.

Streetlights and neon signs light the street now that the sun has set. Crowley rummages into the plastic bag — in the heat of the moment, she forgot to use her usual canvas bag with a lame joke on it, so on top of everything she’s short of 5 perfectly avoidable pence — and fishes out the jar of tahini sauce.

“You better make the best baba ganoush in London, tonight,” she tells the woman when she pushes it into her hands.

But she holds her wrist. Much like Zira did this morning. Crowley doesn’t like the way this is going. She’s sensing gratitude coming her way, and that means a lot of words she will feel compelled to hear, and that means that she’ll be home late, which defies the purpose of her whole plan.

She doesn’t need explanations or even a thank you. It’s just been a selfish gesture so she could go home. She opens her mouth to tell her as much, but the woman speaks first.

“Bless you,” she whispers.

Crowley nods and turns as soon she lets her go. She scowls all the way home, hands as deep in her pockets as they can go and the ramen inside the plastic bag hitting her leg at every step.

* * *

Michael’s already in the office on Tuesday morning when Crowley comes in, powered by spite and coffee alone and feeling like something the cat threw up.

As usual, they ignore each other. It’s taken them years for their distinct brands of crankiness to find a balance between necessary cooperation and their need to focus on work (mainly Michael) and to be left alone (both of them evenly).

The stack of proofs is where she left it, messy and manhandled. 

The small cardboard bakery box next to it, on the other hand, is new.

Crowley puts her half-empty reusable cup down. She brought her coffee from home this morning: the French press is the only kitchen appliance she knows how to use, and brewing coffee relaxes her. Yes, even when she does it while running from one end of the apartment to the other because she slept through her first alarm. Whatever. Watered-down chill is still better than none at all.

She’s about to break their sacred vow of silence and ask Michael if she saw who left the box on her desk, when she notices the post-it covered in minuscule cursive. She picks it up and holds it close to her eyes with both hands.

_I was going to bring you coffee, but I’m sure you’ll have that sorted already. So here’s a little pick-me-up for you. I know you’re very busy, so I will see you when you can spare a minute._

The signature under the note is dashed off repeatedly and replaced with a simple _Z._ Crowley is still staring at the note when Newt comes in and says hello to her, almost making her jump out of her boots. (Newt is allowed to say hello to her in the morning. He’s earned that privilege by fearing the hell out of her from the very beginning of his internship.)

When the elevator’s doors opened on the ninth floor’s hall a minute ago, Crowley had glanced towards Zira’s closed door with a look that was _not_ forlorn, nor too long by any measure. She assumed Zira was not yet in her office, but she was clearly wrong.

She looks at the proofs, waiting for her like a poorly disguised death-trap. _Fuck you_ , she thinks. Before she can second-guess herself, she grabs both box and coffee, darts across the ninth floor until she reaches that door and knocks on it.

“Come in,” says the only voice Crowley wants to hear right now.

She opens the door with an elbow and steps in, leaving her cup and the box on a clean corner of a desk which is entirely made of clean corners. She barely glances at Zira before raising a finger. “One moment.” And she zooms out again.

(She can’t help replaying it in her mind, though, the way Zira looks at her when she sees her, with eyes that could light up a room on their own, the most lovely curve to her lips. If she allows herself to be objective, she can almost admit that Zira always looks happy to see her. But that’s something to obsess over later.)

She comes back with a chair and a selection of tea filters pilfered from the tenth floor. Celestial’s variety of teas is nothing to sneeze at, even if they lose points for the mere fact of being bags and not loose leaves. Or are they making a comeback? Crowley doesn’t know. She’s not into the tea discourse. And she’s not going to use it as a conversation starter, either.

“You have a kettle, haven’t you? ’M sure I saw one last time.” Crowley sets the chair near Zira’s desk and flops down on it, glancing around and taking in the small changes in the room. Some books have appeared on the shelves. The sad plant on the corner of the desk is still there, crying for help. Crowley makes a mental note of watering it when Zira’s not there, and in the meantime she squints at it, willing it to be on her best behavior until she can address the situation.

Judging from the acrobatics her expression is making while looking at the tea filters in front of them, Zira is trying very hard to suppress a smile. “Did you steal all this for me, Crowley?”

“What? No! The tea is for everyone.” Crowley takes her sunglasses off her head and puts them on her face before taking a sip of coffee. “You said you liked tea, but I didn’t know what you usually take.”

Zira gives her a reproachful little smile before fanning out the tea bags and examining them, fingertips coming together. This is the worst, Crowley thinks. She could get used to it.

After a short consideration, Zira makes her choice (with a murmured “why, let’s be adventurous” that makes Crowley scream internally) and reaches for the electric kettle on the bookcase behind her. “Pity I don't have any milk.”

“Oh, right.” Crowley pulls one of those small milk packets out of her shirt’s front pocket and tosses it to Zira with an apologetic shrug. Zira catches it with both hands. “Beggars, choosers and all that, I’m afraid.” She puts her cup down and moves the bakery box until it sits between them. “What’s this?”

Zira shrugs. She’s wearing yesterday’s cardigan over a white cotton dress with a buttoned front, and what looks like a tartan scarf tied as a ribbon, and this time upon closer inspection reveals itself to be an actual honest-to-God bowtie.

(Crowley has worn her fair share of suit and ties, back when she still engaged in social activities and gave a shit about it. She knows how to tie a tie. She doesn’t know the first thing about bowties. She’s never dated, hung out with or known anybody who would wear them. And she couldn’t explain why she finds them sexy now, but God if it’s getting hot in this room all of a sudden.)

“Open it,” Zira says, pouring hot water in a white mug with a weird handle. “You look smart. You can figure out the point of a bakery box.”

 _No_ , Crowley wants to answer. It’s easier said than done for her, at least. No colleague of hers has ever brought her anything out of a bakery before. She counts herself lucky that Anathema agreed to bring her coffee from the photocopier room last week, saving her from crossing the corridor half-naked.

What’s the point of a bakery box? She hasn’t got the first clue.

For a lack of better things to do, and also because it can’t hurt, she does as she’s told and opens the box.

A handful of large rough-looking biscuits sit on a little paper tray. A whiff of butter takes over Crowley’s senses for a moment when she inhales, almost knocking her out of the chair.

“Right.” Noticing her full-body reaction, Zira smiles as she takes the biscuit on the top. “They’re from my favourite shortbread house. Small shop, quite out of the way, but it’s worth the trip.” Small, pearly teeth bite into the biscuit and Zira hums as she catches the crumbs with the other hand. “Scrumptious,” she says around the morsel.

Meanwhile, time has stopped having any meaning for Crowley, who’s just had a personal revelation. 

Up until now, food has been something she’s required to consume in order to survive, and not much else. But now. Now here she is, her brain frozen while the scaffolding of her priorities is being demolished and rebuilt from the foundation. After a millennia or two, she stops staring — because she’s _sure_ she’s been _staring_ , how could she _not_ — and pulls the box towards her. “Those are _my_ shortbreads.” Jokes! Jokes are safe. As long as she can make them, she’s fine. See? She’s _fine_.

She takes a bite out of a biscuit, just to give herself something to do, but her attention is refocused immediately. Crumbs drop on her shirt. “Fuck, this is good.” 

“Mmm.” Zira cannot hide how much she’s pleased with herself. The look suits her, the smug bastard. When she smiles like that, her cheeks do that thing where they turn round like apples. Crowley wants to bite them. “You didn’t eat breakfast, did you?”

Yanking her mind out of the maelstrom it’s fallen into, Crowley takes another bite. Fuck, it’s _really_ good. And it pairs nicely with coffee, too. “Doing it right now,” she dodges the question. And then, before all the butter sends her into a shock and she passes out, she adds, “Sorry for yesterday.”

“Whatever for?” Without a hint of shame, Zira takes another shortbread from under her nose. 

Crowley decides to let her, this time. “I’ve stood you up yesterday. Didn’t even realise you came around.” She’s wearing sunglasses, but she still doesn’t feel like making eye contact. “Thought I’d see you later, but you know what they say, time sure flies when you’re having fun.”

“It didn’t look like you were having fun. Not to sound like your mother, but you need to take care of yourself.”

Crowley’s laugh startles Zira. She couldn’t sound more different than her mother if she tried. She waves the thought away. You’d have to pay her to go there, and good money, too. “I’m fine…” She stops herself just short of saying _angel_ , once again, and cranes her neck to look at the time on Zira’s monitor instead. “Okay, this has been fun, but I have to go. I’ll leave these here.” She closes the shortbread box. “There are vultures in my office. Keep them safe for me.”

“Oh, I’m afraid there’s another vulture right here.” Zira blinks innocently. “You’ll have to come back soon, or they’ll be gone.”

Crowley stands up, brushing crumbs from her clothes and racks her useless brain for a smart thing to say to that. To Zira setting up _dates_ between them.

(No, not dates, fuck, how many times. But she hates every synonym she comes up with — meetings? They’re not discussing a budget plan. And only spies and glam rock singers have rendez-vous.)

“Oh, actually.” 

Crowley stops and leans on the doorframe. She means it as casual and also as a means to make sure she’s still standing upright.

“I brought lunch from home today. Do you figure you could stand taking a break around one o’clock? I could keep you company at your desk.”

Crowley’s imagination has put her in more trouble than it’s worth. It’s specialised in clever answers, improper jokes and other fun stuff that doesn’t fly neither with school teachers nor with bosses. But it’s also capable of weaving rich tapestries of daydreaming with the scope of award-winning Broadway musicals.

So, when Crowley imagines crossing the distance that separates her from Zira, leaning down and pressing a kiss on those infuriatingly soft-looking lips, her legs twitch. Her fingers flex like they’re actually holding the armrests of Zira’s chair. Hot breath makes her lips tingle.

 _No_ . She pulls the plug, draws the curtain, drenches the whole thing in petrol and tosses a match on it. _No._

“Sure,” she croaks out, pushing herself away from the doorframe. “I’ll see you then.” And she flees before Zira’s radiant happiness can affect her and her stupid, overactive brain.

* * *

**#upcoming projects**

—————— **Today** —————— 

**B_prince** 10:59 AM  
| first draft of new ligur manuscript sent to @michael_st.james and  
| goddammit crowley

 **NoRemediosBuendia** 11:00 AM  
| what

 **b_prince** 11:00 AM  
| CHANGE YOUR USERNAME  
| first draft sent to team for editing  
| confirm email received pls

 **michael_st.james** 11:01 AM  
| Email received!

 **NoRemediosBuendia** 11:17 AM **  
**| k

* * *

This is the very beginning of your direct message history with **@zira_fell**

—————— **Today** —————— 

**NoRemediosBuendia** 11:23 AM  
| hey  
| im sending you the ligur manuscript  
| its the first draft so like  
| its a mess  
| if anyone asks you dont know nothin about this  
| but it should give you a leg up when youll have to handle him

 **zira_fell** 11:38 AM  
| I’m sorry, who’s this?

 **NoRemediosBuendia** 11:38 AM **  
**| crowley?  
| tall, ginger, talks a lot  
| youre having lunch with her in 1 hour

 **zira_fell** 11:59 AM  
| Crowley! 

**NoRemediosBuendia** 11:59 AM  
| you don’t like the pun?

 **zira_fell** 12:13 PM  
| On the contrary, I enjoy it very much.  
| I’ll remember that it is you.  
| I’m sorry it’s taking me so long to answer.  
| I’m still getting the lie of the land with this system.

 **NoRemediosBuendia** 12:14 PM  
| well, don’t get used to the name  
| beez will make me change it again soon  
| and im running out of them

 **zira_fell** 12:28 PM  
| Might I suggest…  
| The Reluctant Editor.

 **NoRemediosBuendia** 12:28 PM  
| ooh, a georgette heyer fan, i see

 **zira_fell** 12:29 PM  
| It takes one to know one.

* * *

That last reply comes in while Crowley is making sure that the main character’s brother’s name is consistently Rob throughout _Bottom's Up_ , and not Bob, which — as Anathema points out — he’s called in seventy-six instances out of a hundred and eighty-one.

“Who the hell edited this book?” she mumbles.

She _feels_ Michael opening her mouth to answer, and she holds up a hand to shush her as she makes Beez’s number on the landline. “Who edited this book?” she repeats when her boss picks up.

“Why’re you asking me? You’re the one who’s supposed to be on top of that shit. Besides, who cares, now.” And she hangs up.

“I do,” Crowley mutters to herself. “Because I’m going to have whoever it was so _fired_ , if it’s the last thing I do.”

“You don’t remember because I handled it,” Michael finally manages to weigh in. “We had to outsource the editing for budget reasons. In July?”

“I don’t even look like the person I was in July, how am I supposed to remember? Please, strike the name of whoever did this off your list, and send them into the sun.”

“If I do, will you sit straight? You’re giving me a backache by proxy.”

“I don’t know what you mean,” answers Crowley, who is resting her chin on one knee and has the other leg folded under her. “And joke’s on you, if you think ‘straight’ is something I could ever…”

The sound of a cleared throat from the door makes her shut up so quickly that she bites her tongue. Zira is standing in the doorway, looking like something from Crowley’s softest dreams. The white dress hugs her chest and tapers out in smooth folds, now that she’s standing. “You did receive my last direct message, right?”

She says ‘direct message’ as a German spy trying not to be overheard by a Stasi agent would do. Crowley’s about to tell her just that, when she notices that she’s not carrying just a lunch box, but a lunch _bag_. And it has a tartan pattern. 

A million possible answers follow one another into Crowley’s mind like a nuclear reaction, but before she can pick one — or several — Michael picks up her purse and pushes her chair away from her desk. “It’s lunchtime for me.” 

Zira stands to the side as Michael passes her by. The managing editor acknowledges the publicist with a curt nod, without eye contact. Crowley is impressed: that’s a passionate declaration of love from Michael, whose perfect manners pair with a cutthroat attitude like a fine wine with another fine wine.

When the sound of Michael’s heels is starting to vanish in the distance, Zira frowns and opens her mouth, but Crowley raises a finger. _Wait_.

“Okay, well, time for me to go, too,” says Newt, right on cue, shuffling out with a generic wave at the both of them.

As Zira takes one of the office’s extra chairs, Crowley looks for her boots. They must be somewhere in a radius of six feet from there. “He’s never left for lunch before Michael since he’s here,” she explains. “I’ve been watching this same Pavlovian vaudeville every workday for five months.”

Zira’s jaw drops, and something in Crowley’s chest tingles at how she looks suitably impressed. “Does she _make_ him?”

“No, he’s just too scared of her. You should come around next time Michael has a late lunch. I’ll ping you when it happens. Gives a whole new meaning to the word ‘uncomfortable.’” Then she tilts her head. “What are you doing?”

Because Zira has opened her lunch bag, and what she _seems_ to be doing, to Crowley, is setting up a whole bloody picnic in Crowley’s office. “Would you be so kind as to clear a corner of your desk, my dear?”

That nonchalant _my dear_ is still ringing in Crowley's ears as she does the unthinkable and grabs a handful of papers from the corner of her desk closer to Zira. She throws them on the top of another haphazard pile on the left of her computer screen, then she sighs. 

There are no substantial changes to the desk’s appearance. She’s just made it messier, somehow.

“We could eat at Michael’s desk.” It’s a shot in the dark, and if Michael ever finds out she’ll do everything in her power to make Crowley’s work life a living hell. But the interns’ desk is a health hazard and hers is a no-go.

“Oh, that’s not a problem, actually. I made sandwiches. Oh, I’m afraid I made too many.” Zira is going through her lunch bag, mumbling something about napkins. “Do you want one? I know you don’t like cheese, but you eat meat, right? I have one with ham and mayonnaise.”

Crowley takes the envelope Zira’s giving her by reflex. The pile of sounds stacking up in her mouth doesn’t make sense in any language. She tries again. “How do you know I don’t like cheese?”

“You told me yesterday, at lunch,” she says, with a playful eye roll. She unwraps her own sandwich and bites into it.

Crowley looks down. She may be wrong — she’s not wrong — but she has the sensation the sandwich surplus is not a casual thing. In that case, it might be the single kindest thing anyone’s done to her in the last year or ten.

Her first instinct is to tell Zira that there’s been a mistake. She needs to be reassured that this is not the way things are going to be from now on, that she won’t be piled under an avalanche of kindness and meaningful gestures, of conversations and time spent together. Because the last thing she wants is for the rescuers to find her, but she can hold her breath only for so much time.

Eventually, Zira notices her open-mouthed stare and tilts her head. “Yes?”

Quick! What was it you’re supposed to say in these situations? Ah, yes. “Thank you.” Crowley clears her voice, both to buy some time and to dislodge the lump in her throat that’s choking her. Taking a bite of the sandwich, she vows that she’ll never, ever tell Zira that she doesn’t like mayonnaise, either.

“So, do you like working here?”

Crowley almost drops the sandwich. Her heartbeat had _just_ settled, goddammit. She looks down, defensively. Considers playing dead. “Why do you want to know?”

When she risks a glance, Zira is looking at her strangely. “You know, most people would take that question for what it is, which is a polite way to start a conversation.”

“And answer with a platitude? ‘Oh, yes, such a serene working environment, so little paperwork.’ Is that what you want to hear?” She winces at how her tone has shifted from ironic to caustic. Was that really necessary? And she wonders why it’s so hard for her to make friends. Well, she would wonder, if she cared.

But Zira is still looking at her like an archaeologist who has just discovered the ancient tablet that will change the discipline forever. “Do you always react like this to people trying to chat with you? Like you’re under interrogation?”

Crowley _could_ dismiss it as a rhetorical question, and she would, normally. “Do you mean, am I always a sarcastic, confrontational arsehole? Yes,” she answers instead.

Zira smiles sweetly at that — as if she liked her answer, as if she liked _her_.

Crowley feels her face become warmer and warmer, so she grasps for the first lifeline she sees. “I used to work in Celestial. First job, fresh out of uni, didn’t know better. What business could a kid who looked at Robert Smith for fashion tips have, applying at Celestial?” The words rush out, now. “But someone had just been fired or something like that, and I bullshitted a lot of people in my interview, so they took me for a three-month trial. Then I stepped on God’s toes and she cast me down here.”

Zira, who is leaning towards her, completely engrossed, tips her head sideways. “I’m sorry, on whose toes?”

 _Oh, right._ “Frances Goddard, the president. I’m sure Beez introduced you to her.”

She chuckles. “‘God.’ That’s… Please, go on. What did you do to her?”

“I, um… I guess I had been asking a lot of questions. Why are all the managing editors and the CEOs at Celestial men, and only a couple of imprints have women in positions of power? Why did we keep publishing stuffy white authors and keep rejecting manuscripts from women and minorities? Why is violence acceptable but sex is censored?” She shrugs. “At the end of my trial period, God summoned me to her office. She was quite nice about it, actually. She asked me what I would like best, a cushy well-paid position at Celestial with almost no responsibilities, or an editorial job in the most forsaken and low-profile of their imprints. Everyone makes fun of Cerberus upstairs, did you know that? I did too. I knew they published their fair share of shitty things, but also the odd ones. Lots of first-time authors, a risk that Celestial hasn’t taken since biblical times. And I knew that they were incredibly independent, and that the staff was women only. Newt wasn’t here yet, and I love him, but he doesn’t count.” She shrugs again, taking a bite of sandwich and talking with her mouth full. “So. It wasn’t really a choice.”

“And you have regrets?” Zira asks softly. She looks like she’s listening to her, again.

Crowley swallows and clears her throat. “Lots. Have you met me? But the alternative would have been worse.”

“You don’t believe you could have changed things from the inside at Celestial?”

Crowley laughs. It’s bitter, but it shakes something loose inside her. A knot that had been forming without her noticing. “I’m a lot of things, but I’m not delusional.”

“You never know. It takes the right person at the right time. Do you like oysters?”

Crowley frowns at the non sequitur. “What do oysters have to do with it?”

“A new seafood restaurant opened in Soho and they say they do remarkable things to oysters. But I don’t feel like going alone. I guess I’m asking you the favour of chaperoning me. You could tell me about your internship over dinner.”

 _Yeah, horror stories are good for the appetite._ “I’ve never eaten an oyster.”

Instead of being appalled by her admission, Zira reacts with a delighted smile. “Oh, then you must allow me to treat you.”

Hesitation is written all over her face. Crowley knows that. She also knows that this is when people start pushing, pretending she goes out of her comfort zone for them. She hates that it has come to this. Because she would probably be willing to take a tiny step out of her comfort zone, for Zira. But it will be so exhausting. And for what? What does she expect to come out of this?

“But I understand if you are otherwise engaged,” Zira adds. How very British of her. “The invitation is open, if and when you want.”

Crowley could nod gratefully and leave it at that. Contrary to what most people would say, she’s good at picking social clues, it’s just that she usually doesn’t see the point. But she can’t leave well enough alone when Zira’s concerned, apparently. “I need to finish these proofs.”

“Of course.”

“So, not tonight.”

“It would have been on a dreadfully short notice, anyway.”

“But I will be free tomorrow, one way or the other.”

“I’m sure the oysters are not going anywhere.”

“Oh, they’re not planning a daring escape from the oyster prison?”

Zira looks at her very seriously. “I will stop them with my bare hands, if necessary.”

Crowley rolls her eyes, but despite her best efforts she’s smiling.

With a happy wiggle — Crowley is sure she doesn’t realise she does it, and wonders if there’s a way of finding out for sure — Zira returns to her sandwich. “It’s a date, then.”

 _It fucking is_ , Crowley thinks, willing her heart to not beat its way out of her chest yet and keep her alive just for one more damned day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Stay safe, I love you.
> 
> Also: would you find a glossary useful? Publishing house terminology is not rocket science, but I make take these things for granted. Let me know!


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you, as always, to my betas seekwill and trailingoff, who make everything better.
> 
> This chapter doesn't end on the happiest of notes, and the next will be middling, too. Everything's still mostly okay and they will fix it, in the end, but these are not normal times and I figured some of you could use the heads-up. Love you all, thank you for reading (or waiting), take care.

When she comes in, next Monday, Anathema doesn’t even say hello. “Are you still mad at me?” she asks from the doorway, arms crossed, eyes wide behind the thick-rimmed glasses.

Crowley turns towards the door, signing the email she’s been composing with a lowercase C without looking at the keyboard. She’s known Anathema for long enough to see that she looks confrontational but she’s probably scared of the answer. “You think I’m mad at you for last week’s proofs?”

“Well, you haven’t answered any of my texts, so…”

_ Oh, that. _ Crowley sighs. “Stuff came up. Look, I’m sorry. Can we talk about this later? I’ve a meeting in ten. I’ll call you when it’s done.” If she survives.

“I was hoping to talk to you about a couple of things over coffee.” Then she frowns. “Since when do you do meetings?”

She has a point. Crowley has a true and tested set of strategies to avoid them, which includes hiding in the publicity office (now off the table), being as annoying as possible when cornered and, in extreme circumstances, claiming she has actual work to do.

“This time I have to.” Crowley doesn’t do anything to hide how much she’d be rather doing anything else. “Ligur’s coming here. Zira’s with him.”

Anathema’s own issues are forgotten in the face of the greater evil. “What’s she being punished for?” She’s known Ligur from the beginning: she was there when they picked his first manuscript, a wide-eyed intern occupying what would later become Newt’s desk. Years later, she told Crowley she thought he was a literal demon. Something about his aura.

Crowley doesn't think Ligur’s a demon (she's on the fence about his assistant, Hastur). He just gives her the creeps in a manner equal but opposite Gabriel's. 

She shrugs. “I don't know, for getting a job here, I suppose. It’s her first assignment. I think Beez pushed her in the river to see if she can swim.”

The keyboard clattering in the background stops. Michael’s eyeroll is almost audible. “He is  _ not  _ that bad.”

“Excuse me, he’s exactly that bad.” Crowley doesn’t even look in her direction. “He’s going to make Zira regret every choice that led her here.” A pang of anxiety makes itself known in the whereabouts of her stomach. She meant it as a hyperbole, but what if it’s too much for Zira? Or worse, what if she messes up, or isn’t cut out for the job (and, honestly, nobody’s cut out for the job of handling Duke Ligur), and she gets the sack?

Her concern turns into alarm when she hears voices coming from down the corridor. She shoots out of her chair and joins Anathema in the doorway, from where they sneak a look down the hall.

Instead of the horror movie she’s expecting, though, what Crowley sees is Duke Ligur — a handsome enough man, if you like them intense, self-absorbed and, well, men — with a bloody smile on his lips and Zira laughing at his side. Hastur follows them closely, a dumbfounded expression on his sallow face.

“... and you must allow me to take you there, when the book tour ends,” the author is saying as they approach the perpetually closed door of Beez’s office. “A celebratory dinner. On me!”

Instead of recoiling in disgust, Zira pats his arm with the sweetest of smiles. “We’ll see when we get there, won’t we?”

Before they reach the end of the corridor, Crowley scrambles inside and yanks Anathema back with her, shushing her protests with a glare. But it’s too late.

“Antonia,” booms an all too familiar voice, and Crowley grits her teeth so hard she’ll have to book a trip to the orthodontist soon.

Fists clenched behind her back, she turns around to look at the man in the doorway with the most convincing smile she can muster, which is admittedly not that impressive. “Ligur.”

The man scowls at her, or rather deepens his usual scowl. At least he isn’t a hugger. “Are you taking a break from butchering my manuscript?”

At his side, Zira looks at them like a firefighter assessing if jumping in the burning building is an option.

“You know me, I live to serve.” Composing an apology in her head, Crowley grabs Anathema, who was trying her best to blend in with the furniture, and pulls her forward. “Do you remember Anathema?”

Judging from the look on his face, he doesn't, while judging from the look on Anathema’s face, Crowley will need to finalise that apology.

“You haven’t changed,” growls Ligur.

Crowley has no idea if he means literally or figuratively. “I did, since the last time. It’s just that everything I own is black.”

A moment passes, then a laugh that should really be downgraded to a bark escapes Hastur’s throat. “Funny,” he says, dead serious.

In the meantime, Michael has gotten up from her chair, disproving once again Crowley’s theory that her fancy trousers are glued to it, and she steps unceremoniously between the two of them. “Mr. Ligur!”

Now that she’s able to breathe again, Crowley makes contrite puppy eyes at Anathema, who shakes her head, and then looks at Zira to try and gauge what’s up. But her colleague still has that sweet little smile on her lips and is following the inane chit-chat Michael is spouting.

“Oh, would you look at the time,” Zira interjects after a while, even though there are no clocks in sight. “Let me call the boss and get the meeting started, if we’re all ready.” 

While ushering a surprisingly docile Ligur — and his retinue of one — out of the office, Zira glances briefly over her shoulder, and Crowley almost sags with relief.

First of all, Zira’s expression tells her their friendship doesn’t have to end, because it’s clear she finds Ligur unbearable almost as much as Crowley does.

Second, Zira is cut out for this job in a way Crowley had uncharitably never expected.  _ Note to self: never underestimate her. _

There must be a legal notepad on her desk, somewhere. Crowley shuffles some stuff around and finds only a stack of old proofs that can be sacrificed to the minute-taking gods. “Newt will tell you everything about your next proofs,” she tells Anathema, grabbing the first pen she finds, which is red, which is fine. 

“What?” Anathema says, a little louder than warranted. Over at his desk, Newt lets something drop and apologises to no-one while he retrieves it. 

“Sorry! Be nice, don’t scare him, I still need him.”

Anathema watches her retreat, looking like a passenger of a sinking ship realising there’s not enough room in the lifeboat. “When can we talk?”

“Text you later.” Crowley gives her a final apologetic look as she runs to catch up with the rest of the party, steering towards Cerberus’ excuse for a meeting room.

* * *

Now that Crowley is thinking about it — and a boring-as-fuck meeting is the perfect time to think about it — Anathema has every reason to believe Crowley’s mad at her. And, if she considers the hours she’s dedicated to parse through  _ Bottoms Up _ ’s proofs, Crowley is, a bit. Or was: Beez called the author of the book Anathema had turned inside out, to talk her through the changes they were “proposing”, and most of them were accepted with enthusiasm and congratulations on their excellent job.

That certainly meant the end of the world was nigh, but Crowley tried to see the glass half full.

“Your lackey deserves a raise,” Beez commented after the call.

Crowley, who had been pacing in her boss’ office biting her nails, stopped. “You mean two bags of chips instead of one?”

_ you still around?  _ she texts Anathema under the table, while a conversation about promotional material runs around in circles. 

The answer comes almost immediately.

_ Almost at the end of my round here. _ _  
_ _ Do you have time for coffee later? I can wait. _ _  
_ _ I don’t even need coffee, just have to talk to you. (9:43 AM) _

Crowley feels like an arsehole, skipping their customary coffee date, but there’s no way this meeting will end soon. She writes her as much.

_ Okay, lunch, then. (9:45 AM) _

_ busy then too! (9:45 AM) _

_ YOU? Busy? For lunch?? _ _  
_ _ That’s a first. (9:43) _

Instead of replying, Crowley turns off the screen, even if it means leaving Anathema on read. It isn’t a first, but her friend has no way of knowing that.

Crowley has been keeping the Thing with Zira to herself. She never openly lies about where she’s going to or with whom, especially when half of the time they meet somewhere in the office. But she always makes sure she has an explanation ready. The tea she’s bringing across the hall? She has made too much, exactly two cups’ worth. Can’t let it go to waste. And every time Zira brings lunch from home she makes too much, so it’s reasonable they share it. And the mindfulness classes she’s agreed to participate in? Crowley has wanted to try mindfulness since forever.

(Michael has given her so much grief about that.

“You are going to do  _ what _ ?” she asked in a high-pitched tone, entirely forgetting the e-reader her eyes were glued on until a moment before.

Crowley had just made the unwise decision of being within Michael’s earshot when she agreed to attend one of Tracy’s classes with Zira.

Crowley had answered through gritted teeth, staring at her monitor and hoping that ignoring the heat she felt in her cheeks would make it go away. “I’m trying something new. Having experiences. That’s what you should do before you turn 40, right? Do  _ you  _ have any advice? Regrets?”

That had shut Michael up for the rest of the afternoon.)

To be clear, she desperately wants to tell someone about their let’s-call-them-dates, but not so desperate to endure Anathema’s jabs if there’s an alternative. She needs perspective, not berating.

What she wants most of all, no, what she  _ needs  _ is to tell someone about dinner with Zira at the oyster place, about how it felt to talk with her for two hours straight, as if they’ve known each other forever. About how easy it is for Crowley to forget she isn’t a people’s person around her.

(On the other hand, she won’t tell anyone, ever, about what went on in the privacy of her own bedroom later that night, and how she’d needed a shower afterwards.)

“Right, Crowley?”

Her boss’ voice drags Crowley back in the badly-lit, poorly-furnished meeting room, where four pairs of eyes are looking at her. “Sure. What?”

Beez gives her a look that would be reproachful, if only it could be bothered. “I said: we’ll have the editors look into it. Right, Crowley?”

“Yes. It.” Crowley nods in a professional way and makes a mental note to ask Zira what exactly she’s just agreed to. “’Course.”

“Good.” Beez looks sceptical, but it’s clear that she, like Crowley, can’t stand to be in this room a second longer than necessary, so she moves on. “Next, the press. How did we manage to fuck up last time, again?”

“It was our publicist’s fault,” Michael supplies helpfully. As a second thought, she gives Zira a nod. “Our former publicist, I mean.”

Slumped in her chair, Beez looks like she’s trying to squeeze a migraine out of her head with her fingers. “Right, won’t be hard to do better than that. What can we scramble up?”

It’s Zira’s time to shine. She leafs through her notepad until she finds the list she had prepared. “Well, what I would suggest is to cover as many news websites we can, as well as physical papers. I have discussed our social media coverage with Warlock and I believe we have come down with a joint strategy. And then a few well-placed interviews, but not too many. Maybe even just the one. To make it feel more like… an event.” The beat before her last words is less for effect and more because, raising her eyes from her notes, Zira realises that everyone is staring at her as if she’s been speaking in tongues the whole time. “I was thinking  _ Vanity Fair _ , if everyone’s amenable,” she adds in a small voice, closing the notepad.

Michael is tapping her fingertips together. “ _ Vanity Fair _ ,” she repeats, in a voice that could give you a paper cut if you were not careful.

Before anyone can rip into Zira for making such a faux-pas, Crowley steps in. “I’m sure that  _ would  _ be perfect.” That’s a lie — she hasn’t voluntarily read  _ Vanity Fair _ in fifteen years and, as far as she knows, the magazine could have moved on to cooking articles and in-depth coverage of birds’ mating seasons. She hopes that’s not the case, but yeah, ‘sure’ is a bit of a stretch _.  _ “Nobody at  _ Vanity Fair _ will give Cerberus the time of day, though. Not with such a short notice,” she adds hastily, when she realises Beez is shooting daggers at her with her eyes.

Everybody knows Cerberus is the runt of the litter, the last kid to be picked when forming teams, the lame fucker at the end of the conga line. But God forbid you say it out loud.

But then Beez turns to Zira. “When?” She looks suspiciously unruffled. Even remotely interested. Like someone who’s watching the tightrope walker very closely, waiting for a misstep.

Reopening her notepad, Zira takes a look at a timeline she has undoubtedly memorised. From where she’s sitting, Crowley can hear her tapping a foot on the floor. “Next month’s issue would be ideal.”

Oh, Lord. Crowley smacks her hands on her thighs. Maybe, if she’s theatrical enough, everybody will forget about this and move on. Would stepping on the table work? “Well, then. It would have been a good plan, in a perfect world.” She’s not the praying type, but she hopes that, if anyone’s listening, they give Zira the survival instinct she clearly lacks. This is  _ not  _ worse than the stuff for which the last publicity guy was fired (or resigned, whichever), but skirting dangerously close to it.

Blessedly innocent, Zira frowns at her. “No, I can do that.”

In the silence that follows, Beez arches an eyebrow. “You’re saying you can get us a page on next month’s  _ Vanity Fair _ ?”

Crowley thinks she sees Zira’s cheeks turn a deeper shade of red under the scrutiny. Although it’s impossible to know for sure: the meeting room is in a perpetual night mode since one of the curtains got stuck and nobody knows how or wants to repair it.

Instead of replying, Zira takes out her phone and scrolls through it. Despite the calm and determined front she puts on, Crowley notices her fingers are shaking and clenches her own hands into fists to keep herself from doing something she will regret, like reaching out and holding them.

As Zira brings the device to her ear, the silence in the room could be used as a thickener in a recipe. Everybody’s looking at her, but she’s studiously fixing her attention to the notepad. “Hi, Rita!” she chirps, with a voice that’s pure sunshine. “It is, isn’t it? Me too! How are you?”

Slowly, Crowley unclenches her fists and flexes her fingers under the table. Zira’s phone voice is a polished, more deliberate version of her everyday calm and soothing tone, but the pep in it is the unequivocal proof that she knows what she’s doing.

After a few more pleasantries, she gets to the meat of it, selling Cerberus as “a top publisher” and Ligur as “the British Stephen King”, which makes Crowley dig her nails into her palms to keep herself from laughing or crying. “But of course I understand if you can’t make it happen, on such short notice,” she adds. “What do you say? Yes, I think we can settle for three pages. Don’t worry, it’s not your fault.”

By the time Zira ends the call, Crowley is tempted to ask her for her opinion on spring weddings.

* * *

“I can’t believe I just did that.”

As soon as they’re alone, Zira’s façade of put-together competence crumbles, and she looks so comically stricken that Crowley has to laugh.

“Did I just call  _ Vanity Fair _ ’s executive director in the middle of a meeting? What was I  _ thinking _ ?”

“Hey, that was the most badass thing I’ve ever witnessed.” And that’s an understatement.

Zira starts pacing, even though the close quarters of Cerberus’ break room (which doubles as photocopier room and office supplies closet) mean she can only take a step and a half in each direction. Even in her nervousness she’s adorable.

After the phone call, Zira excused herself, saying that she had copies to do and she absolutely needed Crowley’s help with the machine.

Puzzled, Crowley was ready to point out that Zira knew how to operate the copier better than her, and yelped when a kitten heel sank into her feet.

The only use Zira makes of the copier is to lean on it, a risky business for someone of her wardrobe persuasion. “Sorry for kidnapping you, I just couldn’t stand to be in that room a moment longer.”

“Another minute and I would have paid you to do it. Coffee?”

After a moment’s indecision, Zira throws her hand in the air in a  _ why not, at this point?  _ gesture. “I… suspect you have questions.”

Reluctantly, Crowley turns her back to her to operate the capricious espresso machine, something that requires a strong hand and a stronger faith. “Mmm, let me think. Do you take your coffee with sugar, milk, both? Was the queen in the same class as you and  _ Vanity Fair _ ’s executive director?”

“Black coffee, I’m not an animal. And very funny.”

Shaking her head and grinning, Crowley hands her the tiny cup of coffee and starts making another for herself (even though what she really needs is something stronger). “Why haven’t you told me you went to princess school? Are you friends with all the other princesses?” 

“That’s exactly why.” Zira’s tone is exasperated but fond. “I didn’t want you to think I was some kind of… snotty snob. And Westminster secondary is not ‘princess school’. There’s nothing wrong with a good education.”

“I… well. Didn’t expect it. I thought all Westminster’s alumnae went around frowning at the plebs and had names like Lady Anastasia Whatever the Third. Though I figure having the phone number of everyone who’s everyone is useful, for a publicist,” Crowley muses.

Zira is waiting until Crowley’s coffee is ready to sip her own. Crowley briefly considers whether to keep up the coffee-as-black-as-her-soul charade.  _ Oh, fuck it.  _ She plunks a sugar cube in it and stirs. It’s dumb, but it still feels more exposing than the few one-night stands she’s had.

Zira shakes her head but refrains from commenting. “That’s another reason I haven’t told you.” She looks into her plastic cup as if it holds all the answers. Crowley wants to smooth her knitted forehead with her mouth. “It’s childish, I know, but I didn’t want you to think I got the job because I’m… well, privileged. Which I am. Or only because I know people.”

“Hey, you can’t help knowing people. I’ve always tried my best to avoid it and ended up knowing lots.” Crowley’s heart soars when Zira smiles, and she racks her brain to find something else to stoke those embers into a proper fire. “I’ve seen you with Ligur. You had him eating out of your hand in no time. You’re an excellent publicist, and your contact list is only part of it.”

Zira’s smile widens, and Crowley is hit by its full force. “You think so? I’ve been worried.” 

Of course she has been. Crowley takes a steadying breath, reminding herself that taking Zira’s face in her hands and spelling out how humble and generous and beautiful and competent and lovely she is would be a) a terrible idea, b) a bit much, and c) terribly out of character. “You’re doing alright,” she settles on. She takes a sip of coffee, puts it down and puts a second sugar cube in it.

“I can’t even look at you,” says Zira, but she does, and she’s still smiling.

“I mean,” Crowley goes on, stirring industriously to melt the small mountain of sugar in her cup, “God wouldn’t have given you her ultimate seal of approval if she didn’t see anything in you.”

“Oh, yes, Wouldn’t want to disappoint her.” There’s an edge to her voice that wasn’t there before. 

An ice layer has formed between them, and Crowley wonders where she slipped, what she said to suddenly evoke Dark Zira. “Um, you actually don’t want to,” she says, carefully. “She’s the one who decides if you keep your job.”

“Of course.” Zira’s voice is strained. “I have to go make a phone call.”

Speaking of phone calls.  _ I was hoping to talk to you about a couple of things _ , Anathema said earlier. It probably means more trouble, but at least this time she’s been gracious enough to give Crowley a fair warning. Crowley’s loath to let this conversation end on such a note, but Zira seems impatient to make herself scarce, so Crowley has no choice but to oblige. For the time being. “Me too. See you upstairs later.”

Walking out of the break room, Crowley rips off the mindfulness flier taped on the door and throws it in the recycling bin without even thinking about it.

* * *

The thing about the mindfulness classes is that Tracy has tried to convince Crowley to join them for ages, and Crowley has turned being contrarian for the hell of it into an art.

Plus, she really doesn’t want to do it.

“I’m not spending my lunch breaks doing yoga,” was her most frequent reply.

Tracy would click her tongue. “Yoga’s on Wednesdays. You’re always spread so thin, it would really help you.”

Crowley doesn’t know anything about mindfulness, except that it sounds like the kind of New Age thing she finds phony and overrated. It’s become a matter of principle.

But then Zira had to express an interest in it. Obviously.

“Ooh, I’ve always wanted to try!” she said last week, taking the flier Crowley had just ripped off out of her hand.

“That’s a waste of a good lunch break,” was Crowley’s reply.

Zira raised her eyes from the flier and looked at her reproachfully. “How you spend them  _ now  _ is the real waste.”

_ I don’t know, since I’ve been spending them with the new publicist they’ve been growing on me _ , Crowley didn’t say. Before she knew what hit her, she had agreed to go with Zira, nearly giving an apoplexy to Michael, who had overheard the entire conversation.

(Tracy had also been cautiously suspicious when Crowley made a show of ensuring the administrative office was empty and slipped her the monthly fee of £20 like they were in  _ The Wire _ . Crowley had to reassure her that yes, she was serious, and no, she would not crack a single joke during class.)

Long story short, here she is in the fifteenth floor’s solarium, with a handful of other people she knows and a few she doesn’t. Warlock from marketing spots her and pretends to faint. Crowley forgives him only because he’s wearing her Christmas gift, a black sweater with a rainbow-coloured peace sign that falls off a shoulder. Maybe her attempts to damage-control that kid’s fashion sense are starting to work.

Zira is already sitting on her mat, legs folded on one side, mermaid-like. She’s too busy chatting with Dagon from foreign rights to pay any attention to her, and Crowley takes her time choosing a spot that’s not too close, but not too far either. She doesn’t want to appear overbearing or clingy, but it would be silly to ignore the whole reason why she’s here.

“You can lie down, dearie, if you want,” Tracy suggests mercifully, when she sees her struggling to cross her legs in her tight jeans.

The words  _ Or I could just take these off _ are already formed in her mouth, but Crowley swallows them back. She  _ promised _ . “No, I’m fine.”

“You should be comfortable. You’ll be holding this position for a while.”

“This is plenty comfortable.”

Crowley knows that Tracy sees right through her bullshit, but she lets it go. “And sunglasses are necessary, I take it.”

“I’m sorry, was that a question?”

Tracy sighs and then claps her hands. “Is everyone here? Good. Let’s start, my lovelies.”

After a list of instructions that has Crowley feel like a juggler, with all the things she has to keep in mind (lie down or sit with a straight back in a comfortable position, as if those things aren’t mutually exclusive; close your eyes; take deep, slow breaths, something that comes as natural to Crowley’s lungs as breathing underwater), the proper session begins.

“Follow your breath as it flows,” Tracy says slowly, with an even, smooth, soothing voice. “Let sensation be your guide.”

Crowley has definitely let something be her guide, and it wasn’t her better judgement.  _ Breathe in. This is ridiculous. Breathe out. What am I doing?  _ She can breathe just fine at her desk, scrolling through Twitter. She can breathe, or try to, when Zira comes around for lunch, which is most days now, when they don’t go out.

It’s kinda natural, though, isn’t it? She’s the first coworker Zira met. Wait until she gets to know Dagon from foreign rights better. Maybe next week she’ll ask Michael if she’s free for lunch. And Crowley will be powerless to stop it.

It’s not like she has any right to be jealous, or to monopolise her time. She could play dirty, of course. There must be ways to sabotage those relationships, put a damper on those budding friendships. She’s worked here long enough to have a bit of dirt on everyone.

_ Have you lost your mind? _ She shakes her head, shows these thoughts the door. 

“Now that your concentration has deepened, we’ll try a simple exercise to focus on love and compassion, towards others and ourselves.”

Crowley has missed a good chunk of Tracy’s speech: they’ve moved on from breathing, apparently. Her concentration has never been more scattered. It’s like trying to hold a swarm of bees in her hands. And the word ‘love’ makes her skin itch. She might be allergic.

“Now I want you to visualise a person close to you, someone who’s been kind to you and has shown you love through their actions. I want you to think about how they look, what their voice sounds like, how they make you feel.”

It’s a knee-jerk reaction. Crowley can’t help conjuring up cream sweaters, sunkissed hair, a gorgeous backside, a voice that falls to this sexy contralto pitch whenever the subject switches to food or books or opera. 

God, that’s embarrassing.

Crowley’s back at square one. Yes, for some weird, inexplicable reason Zira appears to enjoy her company. But that’s the point, Crowley reasons: Zira likes everybody. She made Dagon smile, something Crowley’s sure has never happened before. She gets along with Duke Ligur. Fucking Beez was impressed by her, earlier.

Maybe that’s it. Maybe Crowley is one of her charity cases. A mangy stray you take in and feed out of pity, until it gets back on its feet and you send it on its way with a smack on the rump.

Crowley feels queasy, and not only because she’s so upset that all the spicy implications of that last image are going to waste. If mindfulness is supposed to bring you clarity, she’s not sure she likes it. What’s wrong with denial and wilful ignorance?

“When the image is clear in your mind, I want you to send that person warmth and love. It doesn’t matter if you don’t know each other very well. I’m picturing the supermarket clerk who always asks what I’m cooking.” There are a few quiet laughs, but the atmosphere isn’t ruined. If anything, they all seem eager to know what comes next. Even Crowley, despite her own small personal crisis. “You are similar. You, as all human beings, want happiness and love. I want you to wish them that happiness and that love, in so many words. May you be happy. May you be loved.”

With a timeliness that surprises herself most of all, Crowley suddenly remembers the tahini sauce lady, the one she met last week. She wonders what happened to her, if she ended up making that baba ganoush after all. She can wish love and happiness to her, no problem.  _ May you be happy, tahini sauce lady. Have a good one. _ Crowley sits a little straighter. This isn’t that bad, after all. 

(The measure of this sentiment is understandable, delimited, safe. But she has to think about Zira for a moment, she has to. She has no sense of self-preservation. She’s always had to touch the stove when it was hot, she’s always asked too many questions. The love and the happiness she wants for Zira are bottomless. Her heart actually, physically flutters at the thought, as if she were in a Regency novel. Somebody bring smelling salts to her forthwith.)

She has to,  _ has to _ open her eyes, just for the tiniest fraction of a second, to look at Zira. And there she is, lying in the pool of sunshine from the solarium’s huge ceiling windows, knees up, hands over her heart. Her hair is spread out around her head like a halo.

And her eyes, just like Crowley’s, are open.

The moment is so short, Crowley could easily lie to herself and believe that it never happened. She closes her eyes again immediately. They barely made eye contact. They cannot have, she reasons, because that would mean Zira was looking at her, too.

Zira can’t tell, obviously, because Crowley has sunglasses on. But she  _ did  _ raise her eyebrows. Or was it Crowley’s feverish, panicked imagination?

She’s still reeling when Tracy delivers her final blow. “Now bring your attention to yourself. Find your innermost self, the deepest place you can reach with your consciousness, the essence of you.”

Against her better judgement, just because she’s shaken and she tends to do what she’s told when she’s thrown off balance, Crowley does. She reaches in. It’s a dark, uncomfortable place. She recoils instinctively.

“I want you to make the same wish you made before, but this time extend it to yourselves.”

Crowley wants to run away. Both physically and mentally. But if she stands up now she’ll make a scene, and more importantly the circulation in her legs is almost completely cut off and she will fall face-first on the ground. And her mind hits a wall, too. You can’t escape from yourself. Sometimes she forgets.

Tracy goes on. “May I be happy. May I be loved.”

Crowley can’t. She just can’t.

In her frantic scramble to find a lifeline, she goes back to the beginning. Breathes in. She’s okay, she’s fine. Breathes out. See? She’s functional. She’ll just put this unpleasant experience behind her, find some excuse to skip class in the future. Maybe that will help create some distance between her and Zira, because she realises now how much she’s been sucked in. She has some much-needed perspective, now. She’ll go back to the ninth floor, eat something (or not), maybe work a bit for a change.

She doesn’t need to love herself to do that. Or anyone else.

* * *

**Anathema**

_ is it work related _ _  
_ _ the thing you want to talk to me about (2:05 PM) _

_ It could be. _ _  
_ _ Just something I thought you could find interesting. _ _  
_ _ A story. _ _  
_ _ You’ll decide what to do with it. (2:08 PM) _

_ meet me 2morrow for lunch _ _  
_ _ 1pm sharp (2:08 PM) _

  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I like mindfulness, I’ve been practising for five years and I find it incredibly helpful, but it can be _intense_.
> 
> Come talk to me on [Tumblr](https://mllekurtz.tumblr.com/)!


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm working on that glossary, I promise. I've been writing a lot, so have an early update. I have also, um, updated the tags and the chapter count.

The drive to the little town in Oxfordshire that Crowley can’t remember the name of takes 40 minutes, according to Anathema, who has pulled up a map on her phone and is giving directions from the passenger seat. 

The journey by rail takes more or less the same time, “But now I don’t have to run to catch the last train,” she adds, smiling.

Apparently, Crowley didn’t know anything. She didn’t know that Anathema’s grandmother has been in a home for the past three years. She didn’t know that Anathema hops on a train every Thursday to spend an hour with her and keep her company before dinner, and then takes another train back to London. She didn’t know that Anathema’s grandma had what her granddaughter called “an interesting life”.

“Tell me more about her.” Crowley looks ahead. The road is windy and she’s never been here before.

It’s pretty, though. Once the city and its suburbs are behind them, it’s all trees and the occasional picture-postcard village, with limestone cottages and fields of an oversaturated green enclosed by dry stone walls or wooden fences.

Anathema keeps her eyes glued to her phone. “I don’t want you to be biased. But remember she’s old. I don’t mean to say she’s slow, she’s sharper than you and me put together. She’s just forgetful, sometimes. And very straightforward. She’s never held back before, but she has even fewer inhibitions now, which can make her… well, a lot.”

Crowley’s knuckles are white where her hands grip the wheel. She flexes her fingers, rolls her shoulders. It doesn’t help much, but at least she’s gone through the motions, must count for something. “Don’t say it like it’s a bad thing. Right now I’m not sure whether I want to be her or I’m in love with her.”

_(“I want you to meet my grandma.”_

_That was one of the last things Crowley had expected Anathema to say over lunch. “Shouldn’t you take me out to dinner before introducing me to your family?”_

_Anathema didn’t dignify that with an answer. “She’s in a nursing home in Oxfordshire. Come with me. Just once.”_

_Crowley crossed her legs, squinting at her friend and collaborator. “I’m gonna bite and ask you why, but only as a favour to you personally.”_

_Anathema smiled enigmatically. “You trade in stories. She has lots to tell.”)_

Tadfield Manor is exactly the kind of place where you would throw a ball in the hope of marrying off at least one of your daughters, or hunker down waiting for the Blitz to end. They leave the car in a gravelly parking spot just beside a huge iron gate that will close at 7, as the sign on one of its pillars warns. The grounds beyond the gates and around the house seem to consist of neatly mowed lawns, lush shrubbery and trees older than the building itself.

On the path towards the entrance, Crowley whistles. “I didn’t know you came from money, Anathema. Are you sure you’re not up for a marriage of convenience?”

Anathema doesn’t smile, but Crowley knows her well enough to notice a telltale twitch in the corner of her mouth. “How would it be convenient for me?”

“I can be your trophy wife. How hard can it be?”

“I’ve already told you you’re not my type. Besides, trophy wives know how to behave in polite company.”

Crowley heaves a beleaguered sigh just as they reach the heavy wooden door. It’s closed, and Anathema unlocks it by pressing a button beside it. Crowley thinks a knocker would be more fitting.

They make their way through a marbled hall and then turn into a long corridor. Anathema says hello to everyone she meets, nurses, guests and visitors alike, calling them by name, while Crowley takes in the place. The unmistakable hospital smell is the first thing that jumps out at her. She’s never been in a nursing home before and her opinion of them is not based on anything in particular. She tries to curb her biases, keep an open mind. If this is a prison where hopes come to die, it’s a nice, clean and quiet prison.

They walk past a series of doors. Crowley catches a glimpse of a huge dining hall with marble columns and small tables for two. She sees many single and double rooms with reclining beds and huge windows. The bedcovers, the sheets and the furniture are the same in every room, but there are all kinds of pictures and calendars on the wall, photographs on the nightstands, different plaids on the beds, the occasional book, magazine or vase. It wouldn’t be too different from a hotel, except many of the beds are occupied by people who don’t look like they ever get out of them.

Finally, Anathema guides her inside a corner room at the far end of the corridor. It’s not huge, but enough for one person, and the window that covers the majority of a wall makes up for its dimensions.

Crowley’s first impression of Agnes is of an elderly lady lying in her bed, watching the sunset paint the sky red and lilac, slowly plunging the lush garden behind Tadfield Manor into darkness. Crowley makes out a path, a couple of graceful benches and a corner of what’s probably a greenhouse. This place doesn’t look too bad. Is it too early to start making arrangements for herself? 

Agnes is sitting in bed, her back propped against a couple of pillows, sturdy body wrapped in a navy gown that clearly isn’t house-issued. Her grey, shoulder-length hair is brushed and well-kept and the lines around her mouth and eyes and her forehead betray a propensity for smiling and frowning (Crowley wonders which happens more frequently). Her expression is so placid and serene that Crowley’s ready to label her as a sweet, inoffensive old lady. 

She doesn’t _dread_ the hour of polite chit-chat that stretches before her — she can do that as a one-off, as a favour to Anathema — but she can’t say she looks forward to it either.

Agnes lights up like a Christmas tree when she sees her granddaughter. “Look who’s here.”

“Hello, Nana.” Anathema comes closer and kisses her cheek fondly. “This is my friend Crowley. We came all the way from London by car, can you believe it? Crowley, meet Agnes, my grandma.”

 _Friend_ , not colleague. Is Anathema passing this as a social call for her grandma’s benefit? Crowley is opening her mouth to recite the greeting she’s carefully been composing in her head since Anathema told her she would meet her ailing grandmother, but it doesn’t go as planned.

It’s much better.

“Isn't it rude to wear sunglasses inside?”

After a few seconds, Crowley remembers to close her mouth. It’s just that… there’s a glint in Agnes’ narrowed eyes that tells her this is not the sweet grandma she had expected.

“You’re the rude one, here,” Anathema scolds her in the meantime, crossing her arms.

Crowley shakes her head. “No, she's quite right.”

Agnes grabs one of her granddaughter’s hands and kisses it, laughing. “I meant it literally. Is it rude? I can't keep up with young people’s fashion anymore.”

 _Young people?_ Crowley is about to set the record straight, but she suspects Agnes must feel about her the same way Crowley feels about Warlock. Who gave that child a job and let him be in charge of things? “No fashion statements, I'm afraid. I just wear them so people won’t talk to me, but I'm here to talk to you, so.” She takes her glasses off, folds them and tosses them unceremoniously inside her bag.

Agnes’ lips are pressed together, but her eyes are still glinting. “People are not inclined to make inane chit chat to someone they perceive as a prickly arsehole. Is that it?”

Crowley feels like a child unwrapping a gift. “Precisely.”

Anathema sighs loudly. “I need to speak to the nurses. Behave, the both of you. Don't plot any revolutions without me.”

Crowley is quick to take Anathema’s place beside Agnes’ bed. There’s a padded chair next to the bedside table and she turns it so it faces the bed, plunking down on it and letting her bag drop on the floor. “So, Mrs. Nutter, is it?”

“Don't be silly. It’s Agnes.” It’s weird, maybe, but Crowley doesn’t feel awkward under the obvious scrutiny of Agnes’ dark eyes. If anything, she’s eager to know the conclusion she comes to about her.

Crowley’s smile turns into a proper grin. “Just wanted to be polite.”

Agnes scoffs and rolls her eyes. “Politeness is just hypocrisy with a bow on top.”

 _Where have you been all my life, Agnes?_ Crowley turns to the bedside table and sees a framed photograph of a young girl in a tailored jacket, posing in the middle of what looks like a London street. Her eyes go wide. “Is that you?”

“You could never tell, now, but yes.” Agnes reaches out and takes the frame, glancing at it briefly before giving it to Crowley, who examines it more closely. 

“I can tell.” The picture’s in black and white, and time has filled out Agnes’ frame, but the model’s cockiness — the slant of her head, the smirk on her lips, the glint in the kohl-rimmed eyes — tells a whole story.

“1974,” Agnes says. “Anathema found it and framed it for my last birthday.”

Behind young Agnes, the letters of a sign are slightly cut out of the frame, barely visible. Crowley brings it closer to make out what they say. O FAST TO DI, she makes out. _Too fast to die_ , her mind supplies helpfully. “Wait, were you in front of SEX?”

It’s not like the entirety of Crowley’s adolescence was spent pretending she was a time-traveling punk from the seventies. Not its _entirety_. And here she is in front of someone who had actually been what she always wanted to be, her dreams incarnated. She can almost see her seventeen-year-old self ruining her makeup with tears of happiness.

The pride in Agnes’ smile makes Crowley warm and tingly. (What’s it about her and older authority figures’ approval?) “So there’s hope for your generation after all.”

Normally, Crowley would have a retort ready for a sentence like that, but she has the feeling that every sarcastic remark would be flung back at her tenfold. “I’m incredibly jealous,” she says instead, looking again at the photograph. That’s an understatement. “Does the jacket come from there?”

“Do you like it? Vivienne made it for me.”

No way. “Vivienne Westwood made you a jacket?”

“Well, I commissioned it, so she’d better. Put my old money to good use as a patron of the arts.” Agnes raises an eyebrow. “Or that’s what I told my family. Close your mouth, honey, before you catch a fly.”

Crowley snaps her mouth shut. “Do you still have it?” she whispers.

“Mmm. I don’t remember.” 

_How can you forget something like that?_ Crowley thinks. Anathema’s words echo through her mind: _She can be forgetful_. Crowley’s heart breaks a little, and not for the lost jacket.

But then Agnes adds, “I think it was the one Bowie stole from me, but I could be wrong.”

Crowley couldn’t care less if she looks like a deer in the headlights. That has to be a nickname. Maybe it was a dog. But she still has to ask. “ _Bowie_ as in…?”

Completely nonchalant, Agnes shrugs. “He wouldn't be terribly careful picking up his clothes in the morning.”

* * *

“So. Thoughts?”

Physically, Crowley is back in her familiar London landscape, but spiritually she’s on Alpha Centauri. She slams the brakes so hard at a red light that they both jump forward into the safety belts. She’s still full of adrenaline after the conversation with Agnes. Anathema had to pull her out of her room when the home personnel came around with dinner. “My thoughts are that you're a terrible friend, hiding your rad grandmother from me all this time.”

Anathema laughs. “What happened to ‘take me to dinner first’?”

“That was before I knew how cool Agnes was. I can't wait for her to move back to London,” she adds, pensive.

Agnes was impatient, too. She said it was only a matter of weeks, now. _Just as soon as I can walk on my own two feet again_ , she explained. _That’s what the doctors say._

Anathema doesn’t reply. Her silence is so charged that Crowley feels the temperature drop in the car. “Did she tell you that?”

“Oh.” Crowley’s heart falls on the Bentley’s floor. “She's not moving back, is she? I'm so stupid.”

A hand lands on her arm and squeezes. “No, Crowley, you just have to get used to it. She’s so sharp most of the time, it's easy to forget her mind is slipping away.”

She’s right, and Crowley knows it. There had been signs, only Crowley dismissed them. Hell, she always forgets things, and she’s barely on the wrong side of 30. “Does she realise?”

“A little. Sometimes.” Anathema’s voice is soft and tells Crowley much more than her words.

“Is there something they can do?”

“The medications she takes slow the process down. You can stop it, or maybe slow it, but it’s irreversible.”

Crowley thinks about Agnes. She’s old, but not that old. Crowley feels irrationally angry. “It's fucking unfair, is what it is.”

“I know.”

“How are you not freaking out?”

Anathema laughs quietly. “I freaked out all right at the beginning, when she started to forget what day it was, where she put her keys. We… we looked the other way. Me and Mum, I mean. Then she almost burned down the kitchen trying to make tea. The diagnosis was stage 3 Alzheimer’s.”

Stopping at another red light, Crowley turns towards her friend, who’s sitting straight-backed, hands folded in her lap. The blue twilight makes the curls loose on her shoulders seem almost purple. Anathema’s looking out of the windscreen, but her eyes are unfocused. “You get used to it. Inured, in a way. Now it’s just the way she is. Sometimes I’m glad.”

Something squirms uncomfortably in Crowley’s chest. “How?”

Anathema shrugs. “We worried she would get upset when the doctors told us she couldn’t live alone anymore. But now, as long as she believes she’s coming home in a couple of weeks, she’s happy. And I have a lot of conversations with her that I was too scared to have before.”

Crowley signals and turns left, too involved in the conversation to snarl at a jaywalking pedestrian. “Because you’re afraid you don’t have much time left?”

“Not exactly. You see, I thought that even if we ended up fighting, she would forget. But we never fight. I’ve always had a good relationship with my grandma, but it could have been so much better if I had been just a little bit braver.”

Crowley signals again and stops in front of Anathema’s apartment complex. “But she won’t remember those conversations.”

Finally turning towards her, Anathema gives her a sad smile, so wan it could be wiped away by a gust of wind. “It takes away a lot of the good stuff. But some of the bad stuff as well.”

* * *

Life in the office should not feel so different than before, but it does. Two weeks. It took two weeks for the angel’s presence to seep so thoroughly into Crowley’s routine that she cannot go back to the way things were without making an effort to avoid Zira entirely.

After the first few days of perplexed blinking and patient smiles, Zira seems to get the memo and leaves Crowley alone. It shouldn’t hurt this much, the suspicion that Crowley is much more affected by Zira’s absence than the other way around.

She needs to occupy her mind, so, for a lack of better options, she dives into work. Ligur’s manuscript is ridiculous in the worst of ways, and she doesn’t need prophetic powers to tell that most of her edits will be thrown out the window. His Constant Readers won’t care, so in the end it’s just a zen exercise, a cursed mandala that will be blown away by a click on the _Reject changes_ button.

Luckily, her side project is much closer to her heart. After her first visit to Agnes, Crowley has written down — in a physical notebook, lest anyone snoop through her files and ask her questions — everything the woman told her on their first meeting and other things Anathema told her to contextualise it.

_(“I think she was in a punk band at some point.” Anathema broke apart her scone and started slathering a small amount of clotted cream on one half._

_Meeting at Fortnum & Mason’s Piccadilly tea room on a Saturday afternoon had not — it couldn’t be emphasised enough — been Crowley’s idea. With her combat boots, her sunglasses and most of all her table manners, she stood out like a clown at a funeral. Her mother would be appalled. The thought cheered her up, but only a little. “You’re thinking of publishing her memories.” It wasn’t a question, but her tone invited an answer all the same. _

_Which Anathema deftly avoided. “It should be her decision, not mine.”_

_“Yeah, but it’s you who’s dragged me into this.” Crowley rests an ankle on her knee and dangles her foot back and forth, thinking. “What you need is a ghostwriter.” She reached out to snatch a scone from their shared plate and considered it for a second._

_“Don’t,” said Anathema, without heat, barely glancing at her before going back to spreading jam on the scone._

_Crowley half-shrugged an apology and ate the scone whole. She thought she heard a gasp behind her, but didn’t turn to check._

_“If you think it’s worthwhile, I’m giving you_ carte blanche _on how to proceed. And I_ didn’t _have a choice. It was you or no-one else,” Anathema specified, waiting for Crowley to chew and swallow._

_“You did. You know a lot of people in those offices.”_

_“But I only trust the one.”)_

“Who is it?”

Beez’s voice is curt and sour, but Crowley knows it’s not personal. Nobody ever knocks at her door unless it’s something bad. Slack, emails and the occasional phone call are more than enough. Sometimes Crowley thinks her boss has made her office unpleasant with the specific purpose of discouraging visitors.

Crowley's the last person who can blame her. She envies her a little, even.

Clutching her notebook to her chest, she cracks the door open and pokes her head inside. “Can I bother you?”

The monitor’s pale light paints her boss’ scowl blue. “You already are. Finish the job and close the damn door.”

So far, so good. Crowley slinks inside while Beez scowls at her from behind her desk. Her boss is shrouded in a cloud of smoke even though there’s no cigarette in sight, and makes a gesture to encourage her to close the door before someone sees her come in and gets funny ideas about doing the same.

Crowley takes a deep breath and coughs. A mistake, in hindsight. She clears her voice and tries again. “I have a book.”

Putting her feet on a corner of her desk, Beez leans back into her office chair. It's a completely ordinary chair, but her petite frame makes it look like a throne. “You’ll need to be more specific than that.”

“A proposal, I mean. I can make them, as a junior editor. I checked.” She brushed up on the company rules, because it’s been years since the last time she put her name and reputation on the line like this, and she wants to get it right.

Beez’s expression hasn’t changed. She couldn’t be less impressed if Crowley told her water was wet. “Just because you can doesn’t mean you should.”

“Nevertheless.” Crowley opens her notebook and sits on the corner of the desk opposite Beez’s feet. There are no chairs in her office: she's unsubtle like that. “I’ve all the details with me here, but I wanted to pitch it to you first.”

“Interesting strategy. What got you so excited?”

Her tone is still more appropriate for a funeral than a workplace, but at least she hasn’t shut Crowley down. “A memoir.”

The metaphorical hand Beez had reluctantly extended is yanked back. “Are you fucking with me?” 

“Not this time, I swear. There’s this nice old lady I met, who…”

“What, had an interesting life? Gave you her pancake recipe?”

Crowley doesn’t sway. It takes more than a few bland attempts at sarcasm to deter her, as Beez should know. “Well, no, unless you count the time she taught Jagger how to make crêpes.”

This actually shuts Beez up for a whole second. “How did you meet her?” she asks, when finding her footing again.

“She’s… a family friend.” She doesn't want to burn Anathema’s chances to take Agnes’ story to another publisher, and the fewer details the higher-ups know, the better. “I’ve been interviewing her off the record.”

“You chatted over tea, you mean.”

There was no tea involved, but Crowley doesn’t deny anything. She holds out her notebook. “Here.” She watches as Beez sighs and takes it. “Just… look at my notes. ” Should she play it safe or take the leap? Oh, fuck it. “If you greenlight this, I’ll take care of it on top of my other work. You have nothing to lose.”

Beez opens the notebook to the first page, covered in the neatest handwriting Crowley could manage. Then she closes it again. “No.”

Crowley expected the resistance, prepared herself to be numb, to expect the worst. It still hurts a bit. But damn her if she's going to give up so easily. “You haven’t even read it.”

“I cannot, Crowley.”

The good thing about Beez openly disregarding and despising formalities is that it allows Crowley to be just as blunt as she wants to. “You _can_ , you just won’t.”

“I know we all like to think of us at Cerberus as rogue agents.” If Crowley didn't know her, she could almost say that her boss’ tone is gentle. “But I actually have to fight for all of my editorial decisions. Each and every one of them. Do you understand? This.” She jabs the notebook on the desk with her index finger. “This is Celestial stuff.”

Crowley tries to school her expression, but Beez picks up on her frustration. “It is and you know it. Non-fiction is their area. Old ladies’ memoirs? They have the genre cornered. Locked down.”

“But there’s drugs, sex, rock’n’roll! You know they don’t go for that sort of thing!” The implications make Crowley’s horror spike. “They’ll censor it. They’ll sanitise the whole thing.” They're going to take it from her hands and turn it into something unrecognisable. She reaches for the notebook without even noticing.

Beez takes her feet off the desk and leans on her elbows. “I’m going to say this once, and you’re not to repeat it to anyone: I’m sorry.” She waves a hand, looking back at her screen. “Now go do the job you’re paid to do.”

* * *

Crowley whiles away the hours until five, when she’s supposed to clock off. She reads and rereads page 6 of Ligur’s manuscript, changing the same sentence back and forth. She’s so quiet and still that she feels Michael’s concerned glance on her more than once. Her colleague opens and closes her mouth a couple of times, before shaking her head and heading out of the office with her empty mug, presumably seeking asylum upstairs.

Without her, the atmosphere in the office loosens, as usual. Crowley is still blinking at her monitor, being the least productive she’s been since last Monday, and Newt stacks up one page after another of the proofs he’s working on.

_(After one of their office lunches, Crowley had asked Zira some inconsequential detail about an article she had read. What was really happening was that Zira had been browsing the bookcase behind Newt’s desk and Crowley, sprawled on her chair, was convincing herself that she was allowed to look at the person she was talking with. Maybe she should rein in the lustful thoughts a little, though, so any mind-reader who happened to pass by wouldn’t be too scandalised._

_The thing was, Zira had been adding argyle waistcoats to her usual style as the weather became chillier, and the curve of her full chest had never been so alluring._

_She turned around with a finger on her lip, pensive. Her hair was gathered in a loose, low bun, but a few featherlike wisps were too short to be tucked in the hairdo and framed her face. “You know, I don’t remember. Let me check on the portal real quick.” She leaned across Newt’s desk, clicking with his mouse. “Oh, his computer’s off.”_

_“Didn’t you know? It’s never on,” Crowley said, re-emerging from whatever soft, hopeless fantasy she was lost into. “I don’t think it’s even plugged in. We’ve learned pretty fast that it’s better to have him work on paper.”_

_Zira scrunched her nose in sympathy. The light that came into the office, filtered by decades of dirt on the window panes, made the blue of her eyes look even deeper. “And here I thought I was rubbish with technology.”_

_Crowley smiled back at her effortlessly. “You have no idea.”)_

The light sound of footsteps in the corridor is followed by a knock on the office door.

“Come in and be done with it, there’s no need to…” Crowley starts, but swallows the rest of her rant when the same blue eyes she was thinking about meet hers.

Zira gives her a quick smile, and a more genuine one to Newton. “How are things?”

Crowley lets herself sink into her chair and turns back to her monitor, clicking aimlessly. “Busy.”

Zira steps inside. “I heard you went on a field trip with Anathema.”

Of course. Crowley keeps forgetting she doesn’t have an exclusive on Anathema’s friendship, and that she and Zira talk.

“I was looking for Michael, actually,” Zira goes on, glancing at the empty desk.

“She’s not here,” Crowley says, helpfully. “Do you want to leave a message?” She’s not in her right mind, clearly. Exhibit one: she’s acting like Michael’s secretary.

Zira shakes her head. “No, we were just supposed to meet for tea. I suppose she’s already upstairs. Well, do you want to pop over to the nice break room and tell me about your trip?”

The idea of sitting at a table with Zira and Michael, making polite conversation about the project Beez has just torpedoed, is only slightly more appealing than eating a bowl of drawing pins. “I’m very busy right now, Zira.”

Perhaps her nerves are more frayed than she thought, because she’s raised her voice, and the hurt and confusion on Zira’s face are clear. “There’s no need to snap, Crowley.”

Unlike hers, Zira’s voice is low and calm, but her meaning is very clear. Crowley raises her shield reflexively. “I didn’t snap, it’s just my voice.” God, she sounds childish to her own ears.

It’s clear that Zira sees right through her lie. For some reason, though, she isn’t offended or put out. Just… sad. “Right. I’ll be upstairs, if you change your mind.”

She leaves Crowley and Newton alone in the office again, but the relaxed atmosphere has packed her bags and fucked off. Crowley doesn’t mean to turn towards Newt, but she does anyway, and he’s looking at her in disbelief.

Crowley suddenly feels like she’s kicked a puppy. Worse: the puppy is now scolding her. “What?”

“Nothing,” Newt says quickly, keeping his head down.

With a groan, Crowley spins a full circle on her chair before standing up and heading into the corridor. Apart from Tracy tapping on her keyboard in the distance and Beez’s muffled voice coming from behind the closed door of her office, where she must be in the middle of a phone call, there’s no sign of life.

Zira is just a couple of steps past Beez’s door, near the water cooler. 

“Wait.” Something jostles loose in Crowley’s chest when the angel stops and turns around, her kind expression just a little bit blunter, more deliberate, and Crowley thinks that she doesn’t really deserve it.

“I’m sorry. It’s not personal,” she lies. Well, it’s a half truth. “In case you haven’t noticed, I’m horrible with everyone.”

The addition comes naturally. What’s more, it rings true. She has made a thousand asides like this and she’ll make a thousand more. It really doesn’t warrant an irritated eyeroll, nor the few, quick steps Zira takes to where Crowley’s standing, dumbstruck, _nor_ the finger that pokes her just above the heart.

“You’re not horrible, Crowley.” Zira jabs at her again, ignoring her low _ouch_. “Stop saying that. I don’t know who made you believe that you need to cover yourself in barbed wire to protect yourself. It just means that the people who try to reach you will keep getting hurt. And you with them.” 

Just like that, Crowley’s in it again. All the distance she’s subjected herself to, all the time she’s spent forcing herself to forget this woman, Zira blows on it and it’s all gone like smoke.

While Crowley stands in stunned silence, Zira takes a deep breath and closes her eyes, going back to the version of herself Crowley’s more familiar with. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what came over me. I overstepped.”

Crowley opens her mouth, even if she doesn’t know what she will say. Probably nothing, in the end. But neither of them will ever find out, because the last thing Crowley expects to happen happens just then.

“ _Fuck_ ,” yells a voice that neither of them can immediately place. “Fuck fuck shit _fuck._ God _dammit_.” 

A door opens, followed moments later by Beez’s appearance in the corridor. 

_Is everything all right?_ Zira is probably about to ask.

 _What the hell?_ would be Crowley’s statement of choice.

They open their mouths at the same time, but they both close them when Beez staggers back, clearly not expecting to find them in front of her door. “Shit,” she repeats, weakly.

If Crowley was more herself, she would notice the panic in Beez’s eyes. Well, she does notice it. She just doesn’t care. And, when she doesn’t care, her already malfunctioning filters go up in flames and horrible things come out of her mouth. “Who died?”

It’s like the proverbial car crash, where you watch everything happen in slow motion and you can’t do bugger all about it.

Crowley realises the car’s about to hit the wall just before the words leave Beez’s mouth. “Duke fucking Ligur, that’s who.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What's a cliffhanger? Come tell me on [Tumblr](https://mllekurtz.tumblr.com/).


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shout out to commenter tubachrist, who wrote that if Zira were ever to say something unequivocally sapphic, "Crowley would implode from her train of thought going 298578450 miles per hour trying to process it", which is very true.
> 
> You know what to expect from this chapter.

Beez calls a company meeting straight after the funeral. 

“In my office,” she specifies. Even Cerberus’ dingy meeting room is too in the open for what they need to discuss, apparently.

Strictly speaking, Cerberus has six employees, plus Newton. Even so, they can barely fit in the editor-in-chief’s office. If another person entered the room now, someone would have to jump out the window to make room for them.

Exhibit one: not only is Crowley forced to stand, but she’s also wedged between the wall and the chair Michael has silently dragged from their office, preventing everyone else from doing the same. Crowley usually perches on Beez’s coffee stand, a sturdy piece of furniture that has never seen any coffee (this goes straight from the pot to Beez’s cup to her mouth). Like most surfaces on the ninth floor, it’s become a place where book catalogues go to die. Crowley has never bothered to move them: as far as cushions go, she’s had worse.

Today she’s left the dubious comfort of the coffee table spot to Zira, who’s sitting on it with her legs crossed, maroon dress draped over her knees and one foot swinging nervously in its Mary Jane. Warlock is sitting on the floor underneath her, while Newt leans awkwardly on the bookcase near the window and Tracy taps her lacquered nails on Beez’s desk.

Apart from that, the silence is so heavy it’s a physical presence in the room, even if there’s not much space left to claim. Crowley is not the praying type, but she wills Beez to speak first, to make some generic statement that could steer all of them away from the thing they’re so obviously thinking about.

_(Autumn is just starting to creep into the gardens of Tadfield Manor with its yellow and crimson fingers. Crowley inhales deeply, enjoying the nip in the air._

_“Things are going to look up for a while,” she explains to Agnes, who’s sunbathing in her wheelchair beside the bench where Crowley had poured herself. She looks only tangentially interested in Crowley’s long-winded explanation, but she doesn’t look bored, either. “A literal death of the author does that. But the guy was carrying Cerberus on his back.”_

_Even if Beez had squashed her hopes of publishing Agnes’ memoir, after the news Crowley found that the only person she wanted to talk to was Anathema’s grandma. (Well, her actual first choice would have been another person, just down the hall. But it’s still complicated between them, and if there’s something she’s good at, it’s avoiding complications.) She had spent the entire drive to Oxfordshire that Saturday afternoon dreading that Agnes wouldn’t remember her._

_She remembered her._

_Agnes’ barely wrinkled, expressive face doesn’t change its countenance. “You’ll find another.”_

_“Yeah, I definitely hope so, but the…”_

_“You’ll find another,” she repeats. Her smile is worthy of a mythical creature that deals in riddles and enigmas.)_

As she’s done a million times before, Michael crushes Crowley’s hopes. “I can’t be the only one who’s thinking it.”

While Beez just snorts and the others look confused, Crowley groans loudly. “Don’t say it.”

But Michael goes on as if she didn’t hear her. “It’s the best thing that could happen for the book. Its sales are going to be great.”

Crowley slowly lowers the hands she put on her face a moment ago. She meets Beez’s eyes in the half light, or at least she thinks she does. One cannot really blame her if she doesn’t read the silent threat in her boss’ expression. It’s so dark in here. “Oh, shut up, Michael.”

Her colleague turns to look at her as much as her pearl gray pantsuit allows her. “What? You’re one to talk! You’d have pushed him down the stairs with your bare hands without a second thought, if you thought you could get away with it.”

_(Crowley’s reasonably sure they’re not in anybody’s hearing range, out here in the gardens, but she lowers the volume of her voice nonetheless. “I can’t help thinking that it’s my fault.”_

_Agnes’ raised eyebrow is more expressive than entire books Crowley’s worked on._

_“I know, I know it was a swimming pool accident. But I’ve cursed him so many times. What if these things work?”_

_Agnes smiles. “I think the world would be different if that was the case.”)_

“Let’s leave the murder accusation for later and get to the point,” Beez cuts in before Crowley can reply.

Their boss might be diminutive in her physique, but when she speaks, everyone’s attention is drawn to her like space stuff to a black hole.

“While Michael’s right —” Beez squints at Crowley as if to dare her to say otherwise “— the beneficial effect of this undeniably tragic loss —” this time the recipient of her stare is Michael “— will only be temporary. The thing is, with Ligur gone, we don’t have a big name to keep us afloat. We need to find someone who sells like he did, and the sooner the better.”

“And if we don’t?” asks Newton, even if this isn’t technically his problem. 

Crowley has been clear with him from the start: the chances of him staying at Cerberus when his internship is over are slightly lower than those of finding a decent ice cream parlour in hell. But things change all the time. At the very least, Crowley’s going to put him to the top of her list of freelancers, right next to Anathema.

“You don’t want to find out,” Warlock answers from the floor, ominously.

“Cuts,” Michael says at the same time, looking at her nails. “Budget cuts. Staff cuts.”

“Oh, good Lord,” murmurs Zira, and Crowley frowns at her. Does she think her job is in danger? Then again, she _is_ their most recent hire and they managed without a publicist for months. But she’s proven herself invaluable already. Hasn’t she?

“Quiet, all of you.” Beez waits for a few seconds for them to calm down. “What I want you to do is to come to me with a proposal by the end of the week. I’ll listen to them and take into consideration the less asinine ones. It pains me more than it inconveniences you, but it’s unlikely that the new Ligur will just come knocking at our…”

She’s interrupted by three rapid knocks on the door.

Crowley has rarely seen her boss nonplussed. Right now, she looks like she’s been hit on her head, but with something soft, like a foam rubber hammer, and she’s trying to comprehend how someone would dare do such a thing.

Before she can answer — and, speaking of answers, Crowley’s sure that “come in” wasn’t even in the top five — the door opens. 

“Hello?” says a young, cheerful voice.

She _knows_ this voice. Judging from Tracy’s delighted gasp and Warlock shouting and frantically scrambling to scrape himself off the floor, they have recognised it too.

Crowley wastes no time in pulling the door open and enveloping the young man standing there in a hug. “Adam!”

Their former graphic designer pats her back, laughing. “Happy to see you too.”

“What a wonderful surprise, sugar! What are you doing here?” Tracy asks as Crowley lets Adam go, only for Warlock to replace her and hug him even tighter.

“I was around here and heard the news,” Adam says, in a calm, straightforward way. His aplomb is something Crowley’s always liked about him. “Thought I’d pass by and check in on my friends.”

Crowley doesn’t realise how much she’s smiling until she makes eye contact with Zira, whose amusement couldn’t be more obvious. She orders the muscles of her face to stop it immediately and clears her throat. “Zira, this is Adam, who I’ve told you about. Adam, this is our new publicist.”

Turning towards Zira as much as he can, Adam holds out a hand over Warlock’s back. Zira, who in the meantime has climbed down from the coffee stand, shakes it politely. “Hello, Adam.”

As they look at each other, Crowley notices something going on. She thinks the world of Adam and loved working with him, but there’s no denying the kid has a strange energy about him. (Anathema once told her something about his aura being hard to pin down, but Crowley laughed at her and they have never spoken about it again.)

Calling him “intense” is underselling the thing a bit. It’s like he has a superpower, and it’s very entertaining for Crowley when she’s not the one under his scrutiny. It’s not uncomfortable per se, if you don’t mind feeling like your skull is made of glass and your every thought is clearly visible.

“Zira,” he says eventually, letting go of her hand. “That’s a good name you chose. It suits you.”

Crowley watches Zira blinking and failing to find an answer to _that_ , so she steps in. “Adam, fancy something from Celestial’s break room?”

Beez clears her throat louder than necessary and Michael needlessly translates: “We’re technically still in a meeting.”

But Crowley is already herding people out of the door. “Our main source of sales died and we need another. Did I miss something? Let’s go.”

“Wait.” Beez’s voice cuts through. “Crowley, a word. The rest of you can scarper.”

That’s not good. Crowley recognises that tone. It’s far from the first time Beez has asked her — well, ordered her — to come into her office to dress her down for something. Crowley knows that particular flavour of brimstone in her boss’ tone and makes a mental catalogue of her most recent shortcomings, trying to guess which one will be brought up.

She waves to the rest of her colleagues. “I’m coming up in a second. If I survive,” she mouths.

There’s a silent question in Zira’s eyes and Crowley tries to reassure her silently. The publicist is the last one to go.

As soon as the door’s closed, Beez erupts: “Fucking _hell_ , Crowley. You’re a source of headaches and nothing else. Remind me why I put up with you.”

That’s not an uncommon preamble for Beez. Crowley shrugs. “Because I’m brilliant and I remind you of your younger self?”

“I’m not that old, you idiot.”

Crowley leans on the door and crosses her arms. “What’s this about?”

Beez puts her hands on her face, looking even more fed up than usual. “Look, there’s nothing I’m less interested in than your private life, I can promise you that. But if you insist on bringing it into your workplace, you’re making it my problem. Do you understand?” she asks, when no answer seems forthcoming.

Crowley is too busy deciphering the meaning of those words to mind the dreadful sense of foreboding that settles in her stomach. “I… really don’t.”

“Fine, let me spell it out for you.” She plants her elbows on the desk, unblinking. “If you and our Miss Sunshine have a messy breakup, I’m keeping _her_.”

Crowley’s caught so off guard that she physically loses her balance. “What?”

“I know believing it makes you feel better, but I’m not dumb. I’ve seen the way she looks at you. And you’re gobbling it up like you’re starving, it’s embarrassing.” Beez stabs her desk with her index finger. It seems painful, but that’s the last of Crowley’s worries. “Now listen closely, because I’m not repeating it: I’m not kidding. If things get messy and I have to choose between you and her, I’m keeping her. It’ll be out of my hands. So, you know, just… don’t. Whatever it is that’s going on, stop.”

Well, at least now there’s a clear cut answer to the question of whether Zira is invaluable to the company. But there’s another part of Beez’s speech that keeps playing in Crowley’s mind. _“The way she looks at you.” How? How does she look at me?_

For the briefest, most fleeting moment Crowley considers making a graceful exit. She even half turns, reaching towards the door handle.

Then she stops. “Technically, according to the company rules…”

“I know what the rules say.”

The company rules and regulations are still fresh in Crowley’s mind, since she perused each page twice when she was looking up her editorial prerogatives (why can’t these things have an index?) The thought gives her the smallest pang of sadness, but she doesn’t let herself mourn the Agnes manuscript that will never be. The good news is that there’s nothing forbidding relationships between colleagues. The bad news is that they’re not explicitly allowed either. It’s the very definition of a grey area.

“This is exactly what I’m saying. I can’t prevent you from making the stupidest mistake of your life. I’m just telling you the consequences. And I’m asking you…” Beez grimaces, as if the words have a bad taste. “Please, don’t do it.”

The unpleasantness inside Crowley solidifies into a sense of nausea. “Why?”

Beez rolls her eyes. “Which part of what I’ve told you makes you think I’ll answer your questions? You have everything to lose, Crowley. That’s the important bit. Now go, and for once in your life, don’t be stupid.”

* * *

Lately, Crowley finds herself thinking about her first kiss a lot.

For personal reasons, she has established her first kiss to be, in fact, not the first in chronological order (nor the second, for that matter, but you get the gist). There’s only one kiss that deserves the honour of being the real first one. It was far from perfect — she was half-drunk on cheap alcohol, for once, and she didn’t even know the name of the girl. But she still gets goosebumps when she remembers the humidity of the London summer on her skin, the beer and tobacco she could taste in both of their mouths.

She thinks about it a lot because she thinks she’s fallen in love before, but somehow it feels like the first time.

The irony does not escape her. She lost the first girl she’s ever kissed. She’s going to lose Zira, too.

They haven’t talked after their confrontation in the corridor (yeah, well, _okay_ , “confrontation” is a strong word for what was essentially Zira giving Crowley a well-deserved piece of her mind). Crowley has been replaying those words in a loop, until they’ve almost stopped having any meaning. She’s unusually silent as people come and go from Celestial’s break room. There has been so much to think about in the few days that have passed since then, and Zira is unreadable as ever.

So she’s totally unprepared when she steps out of the editor-in-chief’s office and finds Zira waiting for her.

“I know you have an emergency stash. Take it and bring it to my office in five minutes.” At Crowley’s stunned expression, Zira shakes her head and heads towards her office. “Go. See you in five.”

Beez’s words are still playing in her mind ( _you have everything to lose. Don’t do it_ ). She knows she should heed them. But she doesn’t know what Zira wants, and she can tell herself it could be work — they’re still allowed to _work_ together — and she’s powerless to stop herself from knocking on her door not even three minutes later.

The glass door in the office is open and Zira’s leaning on the balcony’s rusty railing. Crowley cannot help herself: she hovers in the doorway for a few moments, taking in the gorgeous sight of her colleague in the bright light of an afternoon so lovely that October doesn’t deserve it. 

Crowley has just been told by her boss that she's expendable, and she doesn't care. She's hopeless, and she knows it. She knows her brainpower should be devoted to finding a way to crush her feelings, not admiring how Zira’s updo leaves her neck exposed. It's easier said than done. And there’s something sour and forbidden in the thought of loving Zira when she’s dressed for a funeral.

Crowley comes out on the balcony, or the poor excuse for it. The white paint on the glass window’s wooden frame is flaking, the railing is a health hazard and the balcony’s actual surface is a generous three feet by six. It felt big enough when Crowley was the only one using it.

It feels kind of big enough now, too.

At least, when Zira takes the offered cigarette and leans forward to let Crowley light it for her, there’s nowhere else Crowley would rather be.

It takes her a few tries to light her own. She can pretend this is just two colleagues sharing a couple of smokes on a balcony. She can _try_.

Zira takes her time to savour the first puff and then exhales slowly. It shouldn’t feel like a revelation; Crowley has seen her eat. Then she turns towards Crowley. “I’ve never seen you in a dress before.”

_The way she looks at you._

Crowley crosses her arms on the railing, casting a self-conscious glance at herself. The dress in question is a knee-length cotton shift, with sheer tights and black trainers, nothing exciting. Certainly nothing that justifies the agonising half-hour she spent in front of her wardrobe that morning. It just didn't feel right to dress as usual, but her everyday clothes were already fit for a funeral.

That’s beside the point, though.

“I try to avoid looking like a goth toothpick, generally,” she mutters. “But I guess Ligur deserved the effort, now that he’s…”

“You look lovely,” Zira interrupts her, with a tone that brooks no arguments.

Crowley’s insides start a complicated choreography to rearrange themselves in a whole new, uncomfortable configuration. That’s not fair. She has nothing to reply to that. She can’t tell Zira she’s the lovely one, with the dark hue of her dress makes her hair shine like spun gold. 

Crowley can almost see Beez scowling and sliding a finger against her throat.

“Um,” is what comes out of her mouth.

Zira laughs quietly. She’s looking in front of her, past the railing and over the top of the tallest tree in the courtyard below. The private enclosure is a forlorn place, where employees keep their bicycles when it's not raining. Crowley's never been down there. Never been the kind of person who takes her bike to work.

“I smoked my first cigarette on a balcony like this.” Zira’s tone is casual, but Crowley is smart enough to see there’s nothing spontaneous about this. 

She takes a drag from her own cigarette, raising her eyebrows. Waiting. Shaking.

Zira flicks off the ashes with an expert gesture. “A cute girl offered me one, and I really wanted to impress her. What else was I supposed to do?”

Pure adrenaline starts flowing through Crowley's veins. She's sure she’ll start vibrating if this keeps up. She should really step back from the railing, just in case. “And? Was she impressed?” she asks with the utmost nonchalance.

Zira is still not looking at her, giving Crowley the chance to drink in her profile. The curve of her chin reminds her of calligraphy.

Her next words send every cerebral metaphor out of Crowley's brain at the speed of light as she chokes on the smoke. “I got a rather nice snog out of it, so I’d say yes.”

Something gets stuck in Crowley’s throat (her spleen, by the feel of it), and a gentle hand pats her back while she tries to remember how this breathing thing works again. Meanwhile, the tiny people in her brain are frantically perusing her archive of comebacks and turning up empty-handed. She looks up, eventually, to see Zira smiling at her, half apologetic, half smug. Then Crowley laughs, too, because her sense of humour veers too much towards the absurd to not appreciate the ridiculousness of the situation.

Zira laughs with her hand in front of her mouth, like a Victorian schoolgirl. This does nothing to temper her glee. Even if the bruise on her ego is slightly painful, even if this moment is an apple dangling in front of her, begging to be picked, even if the consequences of doing that have been spelled out for her, Crowley reaches out.

“I’m so sorry I’ve been an arse to you.” She pauses, looking for a place to put out her cigarette before it burns her fingers.

Zira notices and lifts a finger in the universal “wait a second” motion. She gives her her own cigarette to hold and goes inside, and returns with her desk plant.

Besotted or not, Crowley has to draw a line somewhere. “Put her back.”

The confused look in Zira’s eyes turns to reproach when she understands the source of Crowley's outrage. She places the clay pot on the ground and hands its little ceramic dish to Crowley. “It’s not ideal, but I didn’t think I’d smoke at work until an hour ago. I will be more organised in the future.”

Crowley doesn't ease her scowl. She puts out her cigarette and watches Zira do the same. “We need to talk. About your plant,” she adds hastily. “You're killing me and, what’s worse, you're killing _her_.”

“Well, lucky for me I'm close to someone who knows how to take care of ‘her’,” Zira remarks. “And, Crowley… I accept your apology.”

Words, words. A few odd consonants find their way out of Crowley’s mouth, like the murky water that splashes out of a sink you haven't opened in a long time. “I was… I mean…”

Zira waits, and Crowley looks at her own feet for an undetermined stretch of time before raising her eyes again. She meets crystal blue irises, and her entire body reacts to them in a way she's not comfortable acknowledging. “You don't have to tell me what happened if you don't want to, but it can’t happen again.” Zira’s tone is gentle but firm. “I missed my friend. This doesn't mean you get to treat me like I don’t exist.”

Crowley flexes her fingers, trying to find a way to put her thoughts in a row. This whole human relationships thing, the fact that her actions have consequences, that they affect people, still feels quite new to her. “I’m so sorry for that,” she settles on eventually. There. Lame, but sincere. “I have… missed you too.” _Like air, angel._ “I just, I don’t know. I thought it would be better that way. I never wanted to make you feel like you didn’t exist. You don’t deserve it.” Her throat aches by the time she’s finished. She feels on the brink of a precipice, and not only because she’s leaning on a rusty railing on the ninth floor of a building. 

Her mouth opens of its own accord. _Don’t do it_ , says the Beez in her mind, but Crowley shoves her away unceremoniously. _Sorry, boss_. “I…”

“We do need to talk,” Zira says at the same time.

Crowley’s not sure how she’s still standing. The railing she’s leaning onto might have something to do with it. As long as it holds, she’s fine.

Instead of looking at her, Zira picks at her cuffs, and when she speaks her voice is deliberate, enunciating every word. “I have been thinking. I realised I have been very selfish.”

There’s a long silence. Or maybe not that long, but time slows down in Crowley’s mind, until it’s thick as mud and just as unpleasant. There’s no way this is going where Crowley thinks it’s going. Someone can talk about their preferences without it being… what? A proposition? And Zira explicitly called her “my friend”.

That’s it, surely. Zira has realised the misunderstanding and is about to set the record straight. _See, boss? You had nothing to worry about._

As much as Crowley’s peace of mind relies on a clear-cut answer, there’s a petty, small part of her that wants to hold on to the illusion. Schroedinger would be so proud of her. 

_The way she looks at you._

Their eyes meet, and Crowley thinks she finally sees it: the way she looks at her. 

“I have been selfish,” Zira repeats, this time with more resolve. “There are things that I hid from you, in the hopes that you would like me better.”

 _There’s nothing you could say that would make me like you less_. Crowley is appalled that it’s not clear already. The words bubble to her lips, but it’s evident that Zira’s steeled herself for this.

“Two things, especially.” She lowers her eyes again, fiddles with her hands, rubbing her knuckles and looking at them distractedly. Fuck, if she’s adorable even when she’s worked up. “One about me, and one about you.”

Forget what she said about uncertainty. Crowley’s out of her mind trying to guess what it could possibly be. She’s going to explode if she doesn’t find out. “You don’t have to tell me,” she says nonetheless. And then, just because she enjoys suffering: “We’re just colleagues, you don’t have to, if it makes you uncomfortable.” _I can disappear, never talk to you again, pretend I don’t exist, move into the wallpaper and live there, if it makes you uncomfortable._

Zira freezes like a statue and, when she looks at her again, she’s hurt. Then she takes a shallow breath and whispers, “I think we’re more than that.”

A frantic monologue made entirely of expletives starts playing in Crowley’s mind. She tries to push it into the back of her head, so she can formulate an answer to _that_ that could be broadcast on daytime TV.

“I consider you a friend, Crowley,” Zira goes on, “and a very dear one. But I’ve had an unfair advantage all this time. In fairness, I thought you remembered me initially, and I said nothing, hoping that you would, in time. I should have told you the moment I realised it wouldn’t happen.”

Is it normal for your heart to try and beat its way between your ribs, or is it a symptom of something more serious? Crowley makes a mental note to Google that later, if she’s still in possession of all her essential organs. “Uh?” she says, intelligently.

“But you know how these things go. Time passes and every day it’s trickier to bring up the subject, until it’s just too late. But it’s never too late, is it? That’s merely an excuse. Even so, you can’t exactly walk up to someone and…” Zira yelps when two hands grip her shoulders in a slightly painful way.

Crowley realises those are _her_ hands and eases her grasp a little, ignoring how the commentary in her head has shifted to reflect their new configuration. “The point.”

“Right. The point.” Zira looks like she’s reconsidering the whole idea of skydiving a moment before jumping out of the plane.

But then she jumps. “We’ve met.”

It takes a moment for those words to reach the part of Crowley’s brain that’s able to process them. She doesn’t let Zira go, because she might need to gently shake her later.

“Before,” Zira adds hurriedly, when it’s clear that Crowley hasn’t caught up. “We’ve met before.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I finally made that glossary! You can find it [here](https://mllekurtz.tumblr.com/post/618360485282185216/publishing-house-terminology), on my Tumblr.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And now for something completely different.

_London, almost two decades ago,_ _  
_ _on another balcony_

The kitchen’s balcony is small and out of the way. All the lights are off in the room and if Crowley keeps very still, nobody will know she’s here.

Her plan gets derailed just as _Hollaback Girl_ starts blaring from the living room speakers. A bunch of half-drunk kids in their late teens start shouting the lyrics out of synch, and Crowley, having decided she’s not _nearly_ drunk enough for this, takes a swig of cheap beer from her paper cup. Just to numb the pain a little.

That’s why she doesn’t notice she has company until someone almost steps on her, making her spit the beer back in the cup — a real classy move, as always — and a girl’s voice says, “Oh, so sorry!”

From her corner, Crowley turns towards the balcony’s glass door, while surreptitiously cleaning her mouth on her shirtsleeve. It’s not her best shirt, fortunately. The red flannel is a little too bright and clashes with her hair. She should start wearing black all the time, just to save herself the trouble.

It’s past ten and the streetlights on Bayswater Road, four floors down, are too far away to let her see the girl’s face. In front of the apartment, Hyde Park is a black expanse dotted by the occasional lamppost, and contemplating it by herself is the only enjoyable thing Crowley’s done all night.

The person in the door frame is just a shadow. A pretty, nicely shaped shadow in a dress of undefined colour. The shape starts to turn and speaks again. “I hadn’t realised someone was already here. I’ll… make myself scarce. Sorry.”

As a rule, Crowley cares about first impressions as much as your average nineteen-year-old misfit (that is to say, more than she’ll ever be willing to let on). In the way she dresses and talks, she does her best to walk the fine line between not giving a damn and communicating the carefully curated message _leave me alone_.

There’s something in the girl’s voice, though. It reminds Crowley of a wounded bird that’s crashed on a window pane. She sounds preppy and fussy and gentle, and she's apologised twice to the weirdo who gets invited to a party in one of the fanciest, richest parts of London and broods on a balcony. Not to mention the fact that she was clearly about to self-isolate on said balcony herself.

Crowley is emptying her cup in a planter when she realises she wants to know more. “Do you… um, come here often?”

“Excuse me?” The puzzlement is genuine, but there’s also amusement somewhere in there.

That’s all the encouragement Crowley needs. “To these parties. Oh, wait, don’t tell me you live here.” She honestly could, since Crowley has no idea either who she’s talking to or what the host’s name is.

“I… don’t? This is Jordan Robinson’s house, we go to school toge— Excuse me, do you not know whose house you’re in?”

Crowley gestures widely. “I’ve been dragged here by my mates. Classmates. Whatever. I don’t really know anyone else and I’d rather keep it that way.” With the same hand, Crowley points to the balcony. “Hey, there’s room for two. _Mi casa es su casa._ ”

“Hardly a house, but thank you.” After a moment’s hesitation, the girl steps outside, looking around awkwardly as she searches for a viable way of sitting on the floor while wearing a dress, since there are no chairs or benches, just lots of flower pots to screen them from the street below.

She somehow ends up crouching beside Crowley, hugging her knees. “What are you drinking?”

Crowley shakes her empty cup. “I _was_ drinking. Regret in liquid form, anyway. Do not recommend it.”

The girl’s laugh makes Crowley understand why novelists go on and on about silver and bells. Something twists in her stomach. It’s probably the beer.

“I don’t, by the way.”

Crowley, who’s absorbed in the way the girl’s voice curls around the vowels — public school, definitely, which would explain why she’s here — takes a moment to focus back on the non-sequitur. “What?”

“Come here often. To these parties.”

Crowley taps the cup on her knee twice, three times. Pondering. “You know, you should go inside and drink a bad beer. Have a real party experience. For science.”

She shakes her head. She either has very short hair or it’s tied in some sort of bun or updo, Crowley can’t tell. “Why do people drink it if it’s bad?”

“Because they’re bored or stupid, probably both. I may be, too.”

“Which one?”

“Definitely bored, but why limit one's options.” Making this girl laugh is surprisingly fulfilling. Crowley must find a way to do it again. “You don’t look stupid, though, and you’re less bored than you ought to be. And, to be honest, you definitely don’t look like you’re having fun. Why’re you here?”

The girl stays silent for a bit. The mood shift is subtle but definitely there, and the silence drags for long enough that Crowley starts to form an apology for whatever she said.

“I really don’t feel like staying at home,” the girl says eventually.

That’s a language Crowley speaks. “Which kind of awful are your parents?”

“Parent,” she corrects. “Singular.”

Crowley winces in sympathy. “Who’s not in the picture?”

The girl’s voice drops until it’s a whisper. “My dad. He died last month.”

Usually, a sentence like this would make Crowley wish to be anywhere else. She has no social grace (ask anyone). Grief makes her deeply uncomfortable. Well, not grief per se. She ponders death a lot. It’s the other people. They expect her to follow a script, but she doesn’t believe in that bullshit. She doesn’t think that people necessarily go to a better place when they die, for one. But apparently “funerals are not the right place for this sort of conversation,” so she just shuts up and retreats at the first opportunity.

This girl, though… She doesn’t seem like someone who expects a platitude. She chose to tell her, deliberately. She sounded like she was confiding something that only Crowley could understand.

“That sucks,” Crowley says.

“It rather does.” Keeping her dress in place, the girl carefully slides down until she’s sitting on the floor, too. Their thighs brush, ripped jeans against light cotton, and suddenly Crowley's sweating, even if the night’s only mildly warm. “I can't go back home. My mum is… I can’t be around her.”

“I can relate to that,” Crowley says, her voice suddenly hoarse.

The girl scoffs, somehow managing to sound like she’s wondering what on earth the plebs could have against brioche. “She couldn’t even stand him. They lived together for three years of their life, and then she received a job offer she couldn't say no to, moved back to the States and they saw each other again maybe a dozen times.”

“I’m sorry.” It’s true, Crowley really is. She’s always appalled at the way all families manage to be unhappy, each in its own way. Someone should write a book about it.

“They didn’t even bother to divorce.” It looks like the girl’s about to add something else, then she just lets out a long sigh and rests her chin on her knees.

“My parents are divorced,” Crowley offers. “It didn’t make them happier, but it didn’t make them sadder either. I think…” She hesitates. Maybe, just this once, she can _not_ say what’s on her mind. For a change.

But the girl turns towards her, propping her head on her forearms, and even in the darkness Crowley can feel her looking.

She clears her throat. “This is probably not the comforting talk you were looking for, but I think that sometimes… I think that love is just being lonely together. Sometimes it works out, sometimes it doesn’t.” _Do you listen to yourself?_ asks the voice of reason in her head. Crowley shushes it, as always.

Instead of calling her an edgy weirdo like any of her classmates would, the girl doesn’t say anything for a long while. Maybe she’s just trying not to laugh. “Yes,” she says instead, softly. “Sometimes your lonelinesses are compatible. Sometimes you’re just sad together.”

Crowley raises her eyebrows, tries to play it cool. As if someone understanding her cryptic bullshit on the fly is an everyday business for her, and not a once-in-a-lifetime experience. “You get it.”

The girl sighs again. “I want to do something.”

A long list of answers starts flowing in Crowley’s mind, and she physically bites her tongue.

“It’s just… My mother lives for her job. My half-brother is just like her. They can’t wrap their heads around the fact that I don’t want a career. I just want to do something… meaningful.”

“You still go to school,” Crowley points out. “You have time to figure it out.”

“I hope so.”

“Hey, if you want to do something, it doesn’t have to be complicated.” Crowley wriggles, patting her clothes until she finds what she’s looking for in her shirt pocket. Wordlessly, she slides a cigarette between her lips, lights it up and offers it.

“Oh, no, thank you, I don't smoke.”

“You don’t go to parties either.” Crowley leans in, pressing their shoulders together. “Listen, I don't know you, and you don't know me, I'm just a… moderately drunk girl at a party you don't want to be at, offering you alcohol and cigarettes, the one they always warn you against. But hear me out: you strike me as the type who’s always made the right decision. Followed the rules, did what you were told to. Done your homework on time, you get what I’m saying. Am I wrong?”

The girl scoffs and wiggles a little. “No,” she answers, a little morosely.

Crowley smiles and softens. “I think everyone expects you to, first of all yourself. And, as an expert in the field of shitty decisions, I can tell you one thing: it’s freeing.”

“What’s freeing?”

“Giving yourself the chance to screw up. To say, ‘Fuck it, I know it’s stupid, I’m doing it anyway’.”

A chilly wind insinuates its skeletal fingers up Crowley’s sleeve while she makes her case and keeps her arm outstretched, the tip of the cigarette burning away.

She thinks she's been pretty persuasive, all things considered. But as time slips by, she starts to re-evaluate. Perhaps she needs to leave the motivational speeches — or the temptations — to more competent folks.

Another second passes before the girl takes the cigarette from her fingers and Crowley’s heart leaps. She opens her eyes as much as she can, trying to see in the near darkness, but all she can make out are shapes: the curve of a cheekbone, a naked wrist, some kind of gold ring. The sudden glare of the cigarette paints the girl’s hand and her lips orange, and all the blood leaves Crowley’s face. She may still be wrong, but she would bet this girl is crazy pretty. No, she amends: she’s downright beautiful. Following a strange instinct, Crowley tries to commit her to memory as much as she can. She has the feeling this memory will be important in the future.

A moment later, the girl starts coughing her lungs out and the spell is broken. Crowley laughs and yelps when the girl swats her arm blindly. “It’s not funny!” 

Her second drag is more careful, and when she exhales her words lift effortlessly along with the smoke, vanishing in the night air. The laugh has left a strange bubbly feeling in Crowley’s chest, and in the silence that follows she feels inexplicably closer to the human being sitting beside her. She hopes the girl can feel it too, this odd kinship.

“I’m so tired.” The girl’s voice is soft and honest. Yes, Crowley thinks: she feels it too. “Of everything.”

“I bet. I wish I could help.”

“You don’t even know me.” The girl gives the cigarette back, and Crowley takes it. Their fingers brush and Crowley has to bite down an undignified sound.

“I still like you better than those morons inside.”

There’s a sudden silence when the song changes, and Crowley realises it must have changed dozens of times since they started talking. She hasn’t noticed. She’s suspended in a bubble where time doesn’t flow like it should.

“This is helping,” the girl whispers.

* * *

“It doesn’t feel real. One day he was there, and now he’s not. I know that, of course I do. But I still think it might be him when the phone rings. I hear his voice constantly. And nobody listens when I try to talk about him. Everyone says, ‘Oh, such a good man.’ And he was, but he was so many other things, too. Wickedly funny. Extremely British. He loved dirty jokes.”

Their first cigarette is long since finished, and so is their second. At some point, Crowley left the balcony and braved the party, coming back with two paper cups full of awful beer.

They have been drinking and talking for hours. Crowley is mostly listening, offering the appropriately outraged or amused comeback when needed.

It’s the most fun she’s had in ages.

“The moment I can afford my own place, I’m out of that house,” Crowley says. “The only person I could stand fucked off to restore a cottage in Surrey. I hate my dad.”

“Would you go live with him if you could?”

See, that’s why she’s having fun. This one _gets_ her. “In a heartbeat. Seriously, if he called me now and told me to come, I would just… materialise there out of sheer willpower.”

The girl laughs like that’s the joke of the century. “No suitcase.”

Crowley makes a sweeping gesture with her hand and ends up losing her balance, even though she’s sitting down. She keeps from falling by leaning against the girl, and the girl doesn’t complain, so Crowley doesn’t move, pretending that was her goal from the start. “No suitcase, no money. Just the cigarettes and you.” She sighs and sags against the girl’s arm, and she notices the girl’s shoulder is just _there_ for her to rest her head on, so she does. It’s soft, it’s so nice. “Nobody believes me when I say I hate everything. But I guess I don’t. I don’t _hate_ everything.”

“But you really dislike it, sometimes,” whispers the girl.

“Yeah.” Crowley’s cheeks are suddenly burning. “Like… the beer. I don’t hate it. That’s too passionate. But it sucks.”

The girl heaves a heavy sigh, then shifts a little until her cheek rests on top of Crowley’s head. It’s even nicer. “I don’t really hate my mum,” she says.

Crowley closes her eyes. “I’m afraid I do. Not yours, I mean, mine.”

“Thanks for specifying. I really hate my dad for leaving me, sometimes, even though it wasn’t his fault. I miss him so much that I can’t think about it, or…”

“Or you’ll fall into pieces,” Crowley finishes. She presses a little more, rubbing her cheek against the girl’s arm, like a cat. She has no idea what she’s doing, but it’s so _nice_ . She can barely wrap her head around how fucking _nice_ it feels.

She’s just beginning to relax into it — she’s a knotted mess of nerves at the best of times, let alone when something is actually happening to her — when something touches her. It’s not a bug, she understands a moment before swatting it away: it’s just fingers, threading gently through her hair.

The girl probably feels her stiffening, because she stops. “I’m sorry, is this okay? I’ll stop if it bothers you. It’s just… it’s very relaxing.”

Crowley is positive that, if she asked anyone who knows her to describe her, _relaxing_ wouldn’t be among the top ten adjectives. It probably wouldn’t even make it to the top thousand. This development throws her a bit, but it’s also the best thing that’s happened to her in years, so she shrugs. “It’s fine.” It takes all of her self-restraint to not _purr_ when the fingers start carding through her hair again, fingertips gently brushing her scalp.

Slowly (she could blame the alcohol, but let’s be real, she’s just clueless), it dawns on her that if she plays her cards right, if she’s smooth enough, maybe she can make something out of this. Something good. Learn the girl’s name, for starters. Get her phone number. This is why people go to parties, isn’t it? You share a fag, you share stories, you share saliva. A bit crude, as mental pictures go, but that’s the gist of it as she understands it.

This also means that the stakes are suddenly very high. She starts sweating again. _Quick, do something_ . “I think I like girls,” she blurts out. _What the fuck, man._ “I mean, I’m pretty sure. I haven’t told anybody yet.” She bites her tongue before she can dig a deeper hole for herself. _Way to play it cool, you hopeless dimwit._

She half expects the girl to recoil, but it doesn’t happen. She seems unperturbed by Crowley’s word vomit. Not only that: after a momentary stillness, clearly due to surprise and not horror, she resumes petting Crowley’s head with a laugh that can only be described as fond. “I’m honoured to be the first.”

Crowley’s stomach drops two floors down. She does her best not to squirm. “I didn’t want you to… feel uncomfortable. Or something. Knowing that, um, this… it probably means something different to me than it means to you. Oh, God, I need to shut up.” Crowley wonders if it’s too late to pass it off as a joke. _Yes, I just said I like girls, but I meant it as in “I like Surrealist paintings”, and I don’t want to kiss_ those _senseless, so there’s really nothing to it._

That’s when the girl pulls back, her hand slipping from Crowley’s hair. Crowley barely catches the whimper that tries to escape from her mouth. There, she’s done it. She went and ruined it, like everything she touches.

It’s the first time, she wants to say. She’s never flirted before, there has never been anyone she wanted to flirt with, she’s been the flirtee once or twice and even then it’s all been artless and lame and mostly a joke. So it must count for something. _Don’t go_ , she wants to say. _I’m sorry, whatever I said, I didn’t mean it._

Instead of standing up and going away in disgust, though, the girl leans down until their noses brush. “I would be very disappointed if it didn’t mean the same.”

A lightning bolt could strike her now and Crowley wouldn’t be more shocked. “What?”

She stays still, dumbstruck, as the girl comes closer and closer, and then her breath is on Crowley’s lips, and then her lips are on Crowley’s lips, and then everything shuts off abruptly.

The first coherent thought Crowley has is something along the lines of “lips, warm, soft”. They’re _so impossibly soft_. She remembers belatedly to close her eyes, but it’s so dark that it doesn’t make much of a difference. There’s something pressing on her arm, and when she realises it might be — it definitely is — the girl’s chest, the few mental functions that survived the recent outage go out of the window.

Crowley’s fingers twitch and she realises that, somehow, at some point, one of her hands has landed on the girl’s thigh, because she feels the cotton bunching up under her fingertips. Then a hand covers hers, and another strokes her cheek, gently, and then slides all the way to the back of her neck, tickling, shocking.

At the same time, the girl changes the angle of their mouths ever so slightly, just as her tongue darts out and licks Crowley’s bottom lip. Out of pure instinct, Crowley opens her mouth.

Someone inhales sharply — Crowley doesn’t think it’s her, but she’s not sure — and then the girl presses forward so suddenly that Crowley nearly loses her balance. She puts a hand on the balcony floor, which is far from pristine but could be way worse, just as the girl lets her tongue slip in, eagerly, almost aggressively.

In this moment, Crowley would give her everything she asked.

She’s glad her hands are occupied, because she wouldn’t know where to put them, were she left to her own devices. Is she allowed to touch her? Is she doing well? She thought she had the hang of this kissing business, but every past instance of it feels forgettable and pathetic right now. This feels good. No, this feels _right_.

Her head starts spinning so violently that she has to pull back. She’s out of breath and dizzy. “I…” she says.

“Do you…” the girl starts at the same time.

“There you fucking are, Crowley,” a third voice says from the balcony door, shattering the mood so fast that Crowley physically recoils.

The light in the kitchen is on and she can make out the profiles of the two classmates who dragged her here. She should be grateful, she supposes. She would be more grateful if they went back to whatever they were doing before. She’s about to tell them so, but the girl is suddenly backing away, scrambling to her feet.

“I have to go,” she says. Crowley’s classmates move apart to let her in, barely sparing her a glance before turning towards Crowley again.

“This party sucks. We’re going to Sandy’s. Are you coming?”

Crowley opens her mouth, but nothing comes out. She can’t look away from the glass door through which the girl has disappeared like a ghost. It’s only been a fraction of a second, but she’s already wondering if it was all a figment of her overactive imagination. She tries to wrap her head around what just happened and fails, her hands and lips suddenly, terrifyingly cold.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoyed this foray into the young adult genre! We'll be thirty-somethings again in the next chapter. In the meantime you can catch me [writing Wives stuff for the Good AUmens event](https://mllekurtz.tumblr.com/post/619336614776389632/short-and-unprepossessing-as-aziraphale-may-be) too on June 21. So, you know, stay tuned.
> 
> The world is pretty much on fire right now and I hope with all my heart that you're all safe and reasonably well. If you're like me and you've been looking for comfort in the fan community, I hope this chapter has brought you some. Stay safe, I love you.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is brought to you by my well-documented inability to tell a story in chronological order.

The store is violently lit by overhead lighting fixtures, some of which are flickering. The music is obnoxiously commercial. For once in her life, Crowley doesn’t care.

She picks up a bottle of soy sauce, looks at the label without reading it and puts it down again, possibly on the wrong shelf. She has a shopping list somewhere on her phone, but she’s not really here to buy groceries. The basket hanging from her arm is just for show. When she notices the cashier staring at her from behind the counter, she tosses in the first bag of crisps on hand and moves on.

Just as she steps in the Middle Eastern aisle, a vision of platinum curls and soft curves hugged by maroon cotton makes Crowley’s mind go completely blank. She swallows. She shouldn’t be worried, right? Angelic apparitions tend to do that, historically.

Zira is still in today's clothes, just like Crowley, which makes sense, since they both came here (separately) straight from the office. There's no change in her expression when she notices Crowley. “Oh. Fancy meeting you here.” 

Her voice makes Crowley's knees reconsider their career options as they turn into jelly. She clears her throat and forces herself to look away. “Yeah, what were the odds.” Her voice is so weak it’s embarrassing. She thinks she’s allowed to be cut some slack, though. She surely feels like she needs it.

She also needs somebody to give her a recap of the last few hours, even just the highlights, to see if she’s missed anything. Nevermind, make it the last few _weeks._

What she thinks has happened, if she’s got everything straight, is that she fell head over combat boots with a stranger she met on the bus. Then the stranger turned out to be her new colleague, and a brilliant one at that. And the aforementioned colleague seemed to enjoy her company, for some reason, and they became sort-of friends.

 _Then_ the revelation that Zira had never been a stranger to begin with was dropped in Crowley's lap without warning. Like she's any idea what to do with it. Like she’s the sort of person who can deal with that.

Now, her point. Her point is that these things just don’t happen to real people in real life.

Things are… complicated, right now. Yeah, no, that’s an euphemism. Things are a fucking hot mess.

Crowley keeps thinking back to their conversation on that balcony, like she’s stuck in a loop. And to the _other_ conversation on a balcony, the first one, the one that ended with a kiss and their hands on each other. The irony isn't lost on her. No, the irony has her address, has made itself at home, probably doesn't even use coasters, and is busy pointing at her and laughing.

That old inexplicable attraction, the invisible string that pulled them close back then… Well, clearly it’s not lost, either.

And now they both know about it. It’s out in the open. All they have to do is address it.

Unfortunately, their discussion hasn’t reached a real conclusion. Zira apologised and explained, and apologised some more, but Crowley was too shell-shocked to appreciate the finer details. She somehow found herself sitting on the floor, with Zira crouched beside her (they should have considered starting a drinking game: take a shot every time history repeats itself. They would be blackout drunk in five minutes.) Every time she tried to say something, her mouth opened and nothing came out, until Zira started to be concerned and asked her if she needed something, a glass of water, a lie-down, a moment to herself.

 _A time machine and better judgement,_ Crowley thought. _Alcohol would probably work, too._

Part of her wanted to tell Zira it was all right. But it would have been a lie, wouldn’t it? A great, shameless stretch of the truth, at the very least.

Things were very much not all right.

For weeks she’d been wondering what kissing Zira would feel like, and she’d been scolding herself for it, hitting her subconscious with a rolled-up magazine every time she caught herself daydreaming about it… 

Just to find out she already knows.

Because she’s the balcony girl. Zira is the balcony girl.

Crowley shakes her head in the middle of the store aisle and refrains from pinching herself. Hey, look: progress. 

“What, um. What are you doing here?” she asks, keeping the charade up. She knows perfectly well what Zira is doing in the store where Crowley usually goes and where Zira herself has never set foot before.

They reached this arrangement a few hours ago.

_(“We have to stop spending time together. I won’t have you losing your job.” Zira is adamant, stern as a headmistress. If Crowley wasn’t too distracted by the recent developments, that would be A Thought._

_“I don’t care about my job,” Crowley answers, stubbornly. But it’s not true, not entirely, and they both know it._

_There’s a look of gentle reproach in Zira’s eyes, an unspoken plead:_ don’t make it harder than it needs to be. _“If we have to avoid each other until this is all over, then we will.”_

 _It’s a lot to process. It’s too much. Crowley’s brain isn’t working properly._ Until what is over? _she wants to ask._ And what then? _is another thing she would maybe like to know._

_Then another thought waltzes to the forefront of her consciousness and plants itself there, where Crowley can stare at it in horror. “Wait, did Beez speak to you, too?” She’s not sure she’d be able to survive the embarrassment. She can already picture her boss talking to a horrified Zira about boundaries and responsibilities, like a parent giving a child the birds-and-the-bees speech._

_That’s it, then. Maybe early retirement’s an option. That, or Crowley will just get a new identity and go off the grid. Yeah, that sounds simpler and cleaner than living with the idea of a) Zira knowing about Crowley's terrible, horrible, not good, mountain-sized crush on her and b) Zira being the balcony girl._

_Before Crowley can start making plans to flee the country at night, though, Zira explains: “She didn’t need to tell me anything. The walls in this place are cardboard-thin. I overheard you speaking.” The concern in her eyes is replaced by a strange sadness and by something that looks like guilt, although Crowley has no clue as to why Zira should feel guilty. “And she doesn’t need to threaten_ me _with the consequences of my actions. I already know what’s at stake.” She looks like a woman who doesn’t want to give a beloved thing away. She looks like Crowley feels. “And she’s right. If we keep… If we act on… It’s too dangerous. I’m sorry. I wish there was another way.”)_

Shifting the bag of crisps from one end of the shopping basket to the other, Crowley looks at Zira, who's pretending to browse the shelves way more convincingly than Crowley. She doesn’t seem to be kept upright by the sheer strength of her longing, for starters.

Granted, if what she said earlier is true, she’s just better at hiding it.

 _(The urge to scream has never been stronger than in this moment, but Crowley holds it back._ Look at this display of self-control at the expense of the subject’s nervous system. Do not try this at home. 

_She doesn’t understand, doesn’t even pretend she does. She just knows that they can’t go back to a place where the two of them are just colleagues. That place never existed._

_But if she wants that… if Zira wants that, Crowley will give it to her. Of course she will. She would carve out her own heart, cauterise the wound and go on looking like nothing happened._

_Not to be dramatic or anything, of course._

_Zira’s voice pierces through Crowley’s silent panicking. “There’s only one problem in all of this.”_

_Way more agony than hope, scraping the bottom of her voice box for some spare vowels, Crowley croaks: “Yeah?”_

_Zira’s thin, wan smile is a baby bird with no feathers, something Crowley wants to cradle and protect. She shrugs, the most casual and helpless gesture Crowley has seen her do. “I don’t want to give you up,” she says simply._

_Crowley stops breathing for so long that she feels dizzy. She clenches her fists, both to keep herself centred and so she can’t do something stupid, like fling herself at the woman in front of her and never let her go. The poor thing really doesn’t deserve it. “Okay.” Her voice sounds like broken crockery. “Okay,” she repeats, louder. What she means is something like:_ I don’t want to give you up either, ever. I cannot pretend you’re not everything I see every time you walk in a room. That I’m not pulled towards you constantly, as if you change the way gravity’s supposed to work. That your presence doesn't rearrange how I function in a way that should be analysed by experts. 

_Or, you know. Something along those lines._

_It’s the knowledge that they’re on the same page, or at least in the general vicinity of it, that makes the cogs and wheels in Crowley’s brain start moving. That’s the crux of it, isn’t it? There’s just one thing in the world that motivates her more than giving Zira whatever she wants, and it’s finding loopholes in regulations. “So, no more tea or coffee or dinner. Just work.”_

_“Yes.”_

_This part needs to be handled right. Crowley gives a brief but stern mental talking-to to her heart: it’ll be allowed to have a failure_ later _. Now she has important things to do. “But what if, say, we were to run into each other?”_

_A second passes, then two. They’re both sitting on the balcony floor, now. (Take a shot, maybe two.) Zira is looking away, over the treetops, staring at nothing. Her cheeks are redder than Crowley remembers ever seeing them. She doesn’t know how to read it. She’s never allowed herself to become fluent in Zira’s body language, too afraid of what would or would not be there if she dared look too closely. Does it spell “hope”? Or is she choosing the right words to rebuff Crowley’s outlandish implication?_

_Zira clears her voice. “Well.” She wrings her hands. She’s still not looking at Crowley. “A… a run-in in a public place, by chance, couldn’t very well be avoided, if it were to happen.”_

God, yes. _“There’s actually the chance that I'll have to buy groceries tonight, after work,” Crowley lies easily. Relief cautiously makes its way into her veins, bringing the frantic buzzing of her nervous system back to manageable levels._

_“I can… go to a place that sells groceries, too. That’s a perfectly innocent thing to do.” Zira stops wringing her hands as she takes a short but deep breath, like a decision has just been made, and she finally looks at Crowley. “Neither of us could be blamed if it turns out to be the same place. Say…”_

_“Something like the ministore on Old Compton Street?”_

_Crowley’s sure she’s not imagining the wicked glint in Zira’s deep-sea eyes. It’s the loveliest thing she’s ever seen._

_“For example.”)_

Crowley's been an editor for years. She can work with whatever she's given. With more time – and maybe a reason for why they are putting up this show to begin with, which is something she still doesn't have, not that it's driving her crazy or anything, she has plenty to think about without focusing on this specifically, the mental breakdown harvest sure looks bountiful this year – she could have come up with a better plan than “let’s organise a series of secret rendez-vous like a couple of James Bond extras”. 

But that's the plan she hatched, and that's what they've gone with.

Zira looks so out of place here, in a space Crowley has never imagined sharing with her, and at the same time she’s relaxed and at ease. The ordinary, overcrowded shelves seem more lively and colourful, the music less grating, the lights softer. It’s like a magic trick.

Crowley can’t believe Zira agreed to this ridiculousness just to hang out with her. Who can blame her for being a little bit in love?

“Evening, miss,” says a vaguely familiar voice behind her, almost making her jump out of her skin. Nervous, _Crowley_? Never.

She turns around to see one of the store owners — grey moustache, red apron and an armful of unmarked cardboard boxes, probably on his way from the storage room.

“Hey, Armin,” she answers, as soon as her windpipe starts working again.

The man nods to her and stalks off, and it’s only after a moment or two that Crowley notices Zira stealing a look at her with a jar of hummus in her hand, pretending she’s been reading the ingredients on the label.

“What?”

“You knew his name,” Zira says, looking back at the jar.

“He works here. He's got a name tag.” She’s not _defensive,_ she’s just explaining.

“Of course.” Zira puts the jar in her shopping basket and doesn’t say anything more, but Crowley is sure there’s some nuance she’s missed in this whole interaction.

They keep some distance, since they can’t be seen shopping together (that would defy the whole purpose of their arrangement). The store is never crowded, but tonight they have to dodge a few other customers, one of whom approaches Crowley like a man lost at sea, asking where he could find the wasabi.

Crowley points without looking. “Over there, to the right.”

As the man nods gratefully and walks away with purpose, Crowley hears a giggle and turns. Zira’s not far from her, holding the shopping basket with her left hand and plunging her right into one of the huge sacks of grains and beans that seem to be irresistible for anybody who comes here for the first time.

“Do you secretly work here?” Zira murmurs when Crowley comes closer, pretending to consider the contents of one of those sacks. 

The movement of her hand in the sack makes the dried beans (lentils? Crowley doesn’t know, and she doesn’t care) sound vaguely like water as they shift.

“No.” Crowley sinks her hand in the maybe-lentils as well, without thinking. It's not something she usually does, now, but she loved it when she was a kid. No sack of grains was safe from her grubby hands. It’s about the consistency, the texture, the way sunflower seeds feel different than beans feel different than corn. It’s mindless and relaxing and grounding.

“Does it happen often?” asks Zira, just as Crowley’s fingers touch something that is definitely, positively not lentils.

The experience is suddenly drained of all its relaxing properties, as Crowley’s brain functions falter and something unfortunate happens to her speech skills as well.

(Tangentially, yes. The answer is yes. Crowley doesn’t know why people find her unfriendly scarecrow look approachable, but it happens. All. The time. Zira’s presence is clearly worsening things, like she’s a catalyst for kindness or something.)

The hand that’s touching her moves more deliberately, and it’s clear now that, even if the contact started as casual, it’s very much not anymore. Crowley is far from an innocent bystander in all this, too, but she’ll never look up and acknowledge it. 

Their fingers twine amidst the shifting mass of lentils, where nobody can see them, and Crowley doesn’t know what to do about it, or what it means, but it feels good and scary.

After a thousand years or so, Zira’s thumb brushes on Crowley’s knuckles one last time and she takes her hand out of the sack, shakes off the fine layer of dust that covers it and steps away without a word.

Crowley takes her hand out of the sack, too, but she doesn’t clean it. She’s sure her face is the same hue as the chilli peppers on display in the Mexican corner. 

She doesn’t remember the last time someone held her hand. _Deep breaths, old girl._ She can be a mess once she’s back home.

Her brain is still struggling to understand what happened when she bumps into someone. 

Or, to be fair, someone bumps into her, since she’s just standing there, having a moment. “I’m sorry,” she starts, fully intending to go on with _Am I invisible?_ or something, with as much sarcasm as she can, but she bites back the second part when she recognises the person. “Oh, it’s you,” she says to the tahini lady. 

Fancy that.

The woman looks at her for a second before her face lights up in recognition. She smiles widely and then, to Crowley’s horror, she says, “Oh, my angel.”

Eyes wide, Crowley sees Zira looking over with curiosity from the end of the aisle. Right, this is one of those days, apparently.

She needs a diversion, quick. “Did your baba ganoush turn out all right?” she asks the woman, trying to make it sound like she only cares the correct amount.

“Perfect. My family was very happy.” The lady smiles fondly, motherly. “Your thanks, too.”

Crowley knows that she means _thanks to you,_ and she also knows that somebody else would correct the woman, but she doesn’t. Not this time. She certainly hopes there won’t be a next time, though. “I didn’t do anything.”

“I’m sure you did something,” says a voice that’s neither hers nor the woman’s. 

As Crowley’s face is busy becoming even warmer than before, Zira has walked closer, until they’re side by side.

 _What the devil are you doing, angel?_ Of all the outcomes she was expecting this evening to have — and she had steeled herself against a lot of them; extremely vivid imagination, remember? — explaining an unjustified outburst of affection from a near stranger wasn’t one of them.

Seemingly unperturbed by Zira’s presence, the lady smiles at her, too. “She is a good one,” she tells her, and by the pronoun she used and the amount of people present, Crowley infers she’s talking about _her._

She shoots Zira a glance and regrets it immediately, because she has the fond expression of someone who’s about to agree wholeheartedly with that statement. 

Crowley raises her eyebrows, and fortunately Zira catches on immediately. “I wouldn’t know,” she replies, hurriedly. “We don’t know each other.”

 _Good girl,_ Crowley thinks, ignoring with dogged determination the sting those words cause somewhere behind her ribs.

“She does seem like a decent sort of person, though,” Zira goes on. “Helpful and kind.”

“Wha… Definitely not.” The surprise attack catches Crowley off guard, but now the tahini lady is vehemently agreeing, and suddenly those two are having a full-on conversation with Crowley as the mortified, blushing centrepiece, and Crowley hates this moment, but she loves it, too.

* * *

It takes a while for time and reality to return to their ordinary state of being. It’s like the feeling she gets when she sits funny for too long and her leg gets all tingly, but in this case it’s her brain that feels numb.

Honestly, a lot has happened. She pledges to be patient with herself, tonight. Maybe she’ll cook something nice. She has chips, a jar of peanut butter and a bag of mixed beans for soup purposes. She can throw something together.

(She thinks about the face Zira made when she peered inside Crowley’s shopping bag outside the store and didn’t even try to conceal the fondness in her expression, and Crowley allowed herself to be pierced by it, and what if it hurt, what if everything was absurd and Zira was still keeping most of her cards close to her chest. What if they didn’t even say hello or goodnight or anything else before parting ways. It’s still something, and it’s still theirs, for now.)

Crowley reaches the door of her flat on autopilot, and at first she thinks she’s on the wrong floor — it’s happened before, although not in the past four years. But the name above the doorbell is hers. Why is there light and music and the distant smell of food coming from her apartment?

It takes a while to click. It always does.

While she’s reasonably sure she didn’t leave a light on this morning, there’s only one person in her life who listens to smooth jazz while cooking _and_ has a key to her apartment.

Right. So. One of those days, indeed.

She turns the handle and, just as she expected, the door’s unlocked.

The smell of something cooking is stronger and deceptively uplifting. All the lights are on, and jazz is playing from her stereo. Her stereo that she can actually see now, since everything that usually covers it — an unstable stack of records and at least a bottle of bourbon, if memory serves — has disappeared. 

Crowley already knows she’ll spend quite some time looking for those records (time better spent doing literally anything else) and that the half-inch of bourbon still in the bottle is gone along with its container. A cursory look around the flat tells her that the cleaning spree has been widespread. Everything spells ROSE in capital neon letters.

Crowley leaves her keys on the entry table, deliberately avoiding the tray that exists for the purpose of holding them, and closes the door behind her, turning the lock. “You shouldn’t leave the door unlocked. Anyone could come in. I told you a thousand times.”

The answer comes, predictably, from the kitchen area. “I knew you were coming, Antonia.”

_(“So, Antonia, do you like your oysters?”_

_Crowley tries very hard not to make a face as she puts down another shell on the edge of her plate. “No.”_

_From the other side of the table, Zira frowns, trying very hard not to look crestfallen. “Oh.”_

_“No, yeah, I like the oysters all right,” Crowley amends quickly. Not her favourites, but she can stand to eat some more of them if it means she’ll get to spend more time with Zira. Yes, she’s pathetic, she’s already stopped trying to pretend otherwise. “They’re… strange, but not bad. I meant the Antonia thing. It’s what…”_

_Crowley loses her focus momentarily as she watches Zira bring an oyster to her mouth and swallow it. The deft movement of her wrist, the arch of her neck: it’s a whole show. No, she may not be an oyster fan, but she’s very much into_ this, _whatever it is._

 _Crowley clears her voice._ Focus, you desperate idiot. _“It’s what my mother calls me.”)_

Leaving her shoes at the door, Crowley goes towards the kitchen area and plunks her shopping bag on the counter. The smell coming from the pan on the stove is now stronger, more recognisable: onion, saffron. Nothing she had in the house. “Did you go grocery shopping?”

The woman in her kitchen doesn’t even turn. All Crowley sees of her is professionally coiffed hair — red, a shade or two lighter than hers — and a dress so expensive Crowley wouldn’t wear it to a royal wedding for fear of ruining it, let alone cook in it.

At least Rose has the good sense to wear an apron. Crowley didn’t know she had one. Maybe her mother bought it along with the saffron and the onions and who knows what else. “I knew your pantry would be empty, so I went to Selfridges on my way here.”

“I would have bought something if you’d told me you were coming.” Crowley moves her incongruous purchases from the counter to the floor. She doesn’t need to be made fun of, on top of everything else.

“I thought you clocked off at five. I’ve been waiting for hours.”

Crowley doesn’t swear. She thinks she deserves some recognition for that. “If you’d told me you’d come around, I would have cancelled my plans.” That’s debatable at best, but a visit from Rose always justifies a bit of alarm.

Her mother actually turns around at that. There’s a glint in her pale green eyes that Crowley doesn’t like at all. “Plans? _You?_ ”

Crowley pretends not to notice the mocking lilt in her voice and the ominous glimmer in her eyes. “Yes. With a…” Colleague? Acquaintance? Soulmate? “... friend.”

Rose laughs, and Crowley knows that laugh: it’s the one she herself makes when there’s a particularly funny spelling mistake in a manuscript and she goes around telling everybody about it. She had no idea she sounded that cruel. Maybe she needs to stop doing it. 

“You, with a friend!” Rose goes on. “Will wonders never cease.”

Something twists in Crowley’s stomach, but she doesn’t dwell on it. Alcohol. She needs alcohol if she’s going to make it through the evening in one piece. 

She spots a bottle of Vermentino that wasn’t there before and is practically waving at her from the counter. She slips down from the stool and opens it, pouring two glasses without asking. “I _have_ friends,” she says, because her religion prevents her from not talking back.

To her left, Rose keeps stirring the rice she’s cooking. She’s several inches shorter than her daughter, but has never acted like it. “I don’t believe it. God knows you’re hard to like. Just like your father.”

Crowley drains her glass. Not even five minutes in and the just-like-your-fathers are already coming. That’s a new record.

Not that Rose is wrong. Crowley has her bone structure and hair colour, but their commonalities stop there. She guesses it could’ve been worse: her father’s prematurely grey hair and her mother’s personality would have made her even less likable.

She’s half tempted to tell Rose as much, just to enjoy a bit of outrage, but Rose speaks before Crowley can make up her mind. “I tidied up the mess in your living room.” 

“I know.” Rose’s idea of what a home should be is a place that looks as little lived in as possible, and it’s antithetical to Crowley’s. It’s hard to miss. “I’d rather you hadn’t,” Crowley says, knowing full well that voicing her wishes won’t make a single difference.

“Says you. Such a mess. Honestly, it’s for the best that you don’t have a family. You’d make them live in a pigsty.”

Crowley refills her glass. She’s not going to unpack _that,_ she’s not even going to touch it with a long stick. “It’s still my house.”

“Technically it’s mine,” Rose replies, just as Crowley knew she would.

And, _technically,_ she’s right. The flat has belonged to Crowley’s family since Rose’s father bought it in the eighties, and when he passed away it became Rose’s property. But her mother spends so little time in the UK (“It’s not like I have anything tying me here,” she said once to Crowley’s face) that it’s less trouble for her to book a hotel suite than to manage a whole household.

And, to Crowley, the benefits of living in central London without a rent to pay are immeasurable. She doesn’t have to worry about landlords evicting her. She has actual savings: her only significant expenses are utilities and food, neither of which amount to much. A lot of people have it worse. A surprise visit from Satan herself once in a blue moon is a small price to pay for a roof over her head.

The script is always the same: Rose comes in using her spare keys, fixes her house, makes insinuations, cooks dinner, drinks wine and tells her everything about her latest travels. She never asks anything about Crowley’s life, but Crowley doesn’t mind. She learned long ago that the best way of coping with Rose is to wait for the storm to pass. Just let her tidy up and cook and talk. Sometimes it's not even such a hardship. That’s the thing about her mother: she’s an interesting person. And she can make anything interesting, usually by being mean about it.

 _Remind you of someone?_ says a little voice in the back of Crowley’s mind. 

She ignores it. The unpleasant feeling doesn’t go away, though. The stark ministore lights that almost brought a halo out of Zira’s hair feel light years away. The hand that held hers is a distant dream, something she’s imagined. How can she be both the person she is and the one that somebody like Zira could— No, scratch that. She’s not going there, not tonight, not here. She can either deal with her mother or think about Zira, not both at once.

The truth is, she doesn’t need her mother to tell her that she’s not worth any effort. Her inner monologue already speaks with Rose’s voice. The truth is that, when you’re made of ice, you can thaw without losing yourself. The truth is that Crowley may be just like her father, but she’s Rose’s daughter as well.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 9 is already written and will be out as soon as I've drafted chapter 10! Thanks for sticking with my super erratic updating schedule, which is basically "whenever".   
> You must also know that every comment sustains me and is met with much screeching on my part, doesn't matter if it's a keysmash or an essay. And I tell my dog about each kudos I receive. You are all wonderful, please take care of yourselves and each other ♥


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really meant to post this sooner! Anyway, here's ~~Wonderwall~~ chapter 9.

“What are you doing here?”

Beez’s voice echoes through the empty corridor and Crowley almost spills the coffee she’s taking back to her desk. She looks for an excuse, then she remembers she doesn’t need one. “I work here. You’re the one who hired me.”

“What the hell was I thinking.” But Beez’s voice is low, almost soft. (Almost.) She gives Crowley a once-over with a raised eyebrow. “Did you at least see the plate of the car that ran you over?”

Crowley wishes she were already at her desk, possibly with the lights off. She’s not properly hungover, but half a bottle of wine, a fitful sleep and an early rise to avoid running into her mother did not do her good. As bitter as the thought may be, she’s too old for this.

She’s about to quip back, when she notices the incongruous, garish and conspicuous bunch of flowers Beez is carrying. “What is _that?_ ”

Beez doesn’t lose her footing very often, but the disoriented expression that flashes on her face as she looks at the flowers, as if she had forgotten she was carrying them, doesn’t escape Crowley, even in her not-quite-hungover state. 

“Boss, do you have an admirer? Are we going to have a new mum or dad?”

There’s something raw in the reproachful glare that Beez gives her. With a couple of steps, her boss reaches the rubbish bin in the middle of the corridor, next to the perpetually empty water cooler, and throws the flowers away like they’ve insulted her personally. 

“Or maybe not.” Now Crowley is both confused and intrigued. What’s certain is that focusing on other people’s problems sounds way better than ruminating on hers. “What was that about?”

“They were from Gabriel.” Before Crowley can say anything — well, anything more than her face probably does already — Beez adds, “For Ligur. Who the fuck sends flowers for times like these? ‘I'm sorry your author died, here's some flowers.’”

But Crowley is not ready to let the first part of her answer go. “Gabriel? Gabriel Goddard? That Gabriel? He sent you flowers?”

“He sent _the whole office_ flowers,” Beez specifies.

Crowley cradles her coffee close to her chest as Beez loses her patience and storms past her on her way to her office. “Was there a card?”

The door slams in her face, making her headache vehemently protest.

Worth it.

* * *

“You look awful.”

If Michael of all people has chosen to remark on it as soon as she sees her from the office door, then it must be true. Not that Crowley had any doubt anymore. “Thanks. You too.”

Her colleague scoffs and walks to her desk, putting her bag down. “You’re unusually early. Did something happen?”

A hopeful glance into her mug tells Crowley that the coffee is unfortunately all gone. She rubs her eyes as she bites back the first couple of answers that come into her mind. She knows she won’t find any sympathy in Michael, but she also knows that the fastest way to make this interrogation stop is to answer. “Satan came by yesterday evening.”

Right on cue, Michael sighs. “I wish you wouldn’t call your mother that. If you just tried to see her…”

“Yeah, nope, no.” Crowley springs from her chair, making it spin, and bolts out of the door. 

The whole point of leaving early and coming to the office at this ungodly hour was to avoid conflict and dodge sanctimonious women. Jesus, her mother and Michael must never meet. They would unionise against her.

She finds herself in front of the publicity office before she can do anything about it. The door is open and the lights are on.

She knows that it’d be safer to walk away, to find another place to bury her annoyance and pain. That’s what cramped break rooms were invented for. 

Moreover, Crowley still gets palpitations every time she thinks about Zira being the balcony girl. She doesn’t know if she’s ready to talk about it. She’s definitely not ready to discover what else Zira hasn’t told her.

On the other hand, the more she waits, the higher the chance that someone will come by and see her standing there like a loon.

She knocks on the open door without entering. “It’s me.” She cringes. _It’s me?_ Really?

The answer takes so long to come that Crowley fears there won’t be any. Maybe Zira hasn’t heard her. Or maybe she _has_ and she’s ignoring her. Maybe she’s not even in her office, maybe the lights are on for some other reason, maybe she’s late to work for the first time in months because of something Crowley said last night, maybe she quit and she’s gone forever, maybe…

The sound of a few quick steps pulls the brakes on Crowley’s train of thought before it can go fully off the rails. 

When Zira appears in the doorway, a knot tugs loose in Crowley’s chest.

It doesn’t matter that they’re in a weird place, that a shadow is cast by the unspoken thing between them. When Zira smiles at her, Crowley breathes a little easier, and the invisible string tying them together grows a little tighter.

“Good morning, my dear.”

It’s silly, honestly. _It’s not a big deal, she calls everyone “my dear”, it’s not like you’re special,_ Crowley reminds herself. She still feels like something inside her has been fed. She should get herself checked, talk to someone. Everything short of taking another mindfulness class.

Zira’s back to her usual palette; her hair is pulled back in a loose bun, her earrings are shaped like golden leaves. Crowley’s too distracted by wondering how kissing her just below those earrings would feel (and smothering that thought as soon as it forms, Jesus) to notice the alarm in Zira’s tone as she says, “What happened to you? Come in.”

Exactly _how_ awful does she look? Crowley scoffs as she steps into the office. “Nothing. Something. Tell you later.” _“Later?” You’re not seeing her anymore, remember? No tea, no coffee, no dinners, no hanging out in the break room. And you can’t ask her to star in another le Carré roleplay for you._ Crowley takes a step back. “Um. Later. I’ll come back with some… work thing.” That sounded professional, all right. She’ll do her best to come back, though, even if she has to fabricate the “work thing” from scratch.

But Zira shakes her head, looking disappointed or possibly just tired. Listen, Crowley’s not good at reading emotions on the best of days, cut her some slack if today her perception isn’t at its best.

Her remaining brain activity is effectively shut down by what Zira says next. “Close the door.”

It’s like flipping a switch. Without a second thought, Crowley turns and closes the door, leaning on it for good measure. Yes, there’s definitely something worth exploring there. Some other time, though.

Instead of sitting down, or putting the kettle on, or doing something normal that could give Crowley enough time to get her bearings and glue her scrambled self back together, Zira asks, “Can I touch you?”

Her voice is barely a whisper, but the question hits Crowley right in the solar plexus. Another one of those and somebody will have to scoop her up from the floor with a spoon.

Did she just imagine it? Is she hearing what she wants to hear, is she having a what’s-it-called, an auditory hallucination?

But Zira is still looking at her, patient, waiting for an answer to her very real question.

Eventually, the part of Crowley’s brain that’s in charge of her voice is dragged from wherever it was hiding and shoved onstage. “Always,” she manages to spit out.

That’s all it takes, apparently. Come to work looking like a wreck and you’ll be hugged by an angel: who knew. 

Because that’s what’s happening right now: Zira’s arms are around her waist, slipping between her back and the door. Her palms are ever so gently pressed on Crowley’s ribcage, holding her like she’s worth the gentleness, and her head comes to rest on Crowley’s sternum, tucked under her chin. And she fits there. Crowley’s angles and protruding bones and freakish height, they’re perfectly okay right now, because Zira is soft for the both of them. Should she hug her back? Where would it be okay to touch her? Can Zira feel her shaking right now?

“I will go to the British, this Saturday. Around noon, maybe. And maybe I’ll stop by the cafe once I’m done. Say, a couple of hours later?”

Crowley can’t wrap her head around the fact that she can feel the vibrations of Zira’s voice where she’s pressed against her. She needs to clear her throat, but she doesn’t want to disturb the head that’s resting near it, so she doesn’t. “Good plan.” Her words sound a little garbled. She hopes it’s not the beginning of a heart attack.

Finally — too soon, if you listen to Crowley’s subconscious, which gets promptly smacked again by the imaginary newspaper — Zira pulls her head back. She doesn’t step away. Her hands are now resting on Crowley’s waist, and Crowley’s shirt is so thin that she can feel the heat of them through the fabric. If this will be the cause of her death, well, what a way to go.

“Take care of yourself,” Zira says, pinning her with her gaze. Today her eyes are the colour of those photoshopped tropical beaches. Crowley had no idea that hue could exist in real life. “For me.”

When Zira stands on her tiptoes, Crowley’s first instinct is to step back, but there’s a door in the way. Besides, she couldn’t move even if the whole building went down. The rescuers would find her still upright and looking like an idiot.

And it turns out that she was wrong, or at least optimistic, if she thought that Zira’s hands on her waist had a fair chance to kill her. Because Zira’s lips on her cheek are worse, much worse, in terms of causing damage. Those lips — the ones she constantly dreams of kissing and that she once did, in fact, kiss, but she cannot think about that now — are so close that she could catch them if she just turned her head.

It doesn’t last more than a couple of seconds. Crowley barely has the time to feel Zira’s breath on her cheekbone. She’ll never recover from it.

Her expression must be _something_ , judging from the breathy laugh Zira makes when her heels touch the ground again, when she’s no longer kissing her (and Crowley’s cheek is tingling like she’s been stung, like she’s allergic to kisses, and wouldn’t that be totally unsurprising).

“I need to go back to work,” Zira says. She looks sad while she’s saying it. She opens her mouth and closes it, and Crowley has the feeling that what she says next is not what she meant to say the first time. “Do try to get back to your office in one piece, my dear, please?”

* * *

 **Satan**   
_Leaving for the Savoy. See you._ _  
_ _Where were you this morning? (10:14 AM)_

 _i do have a job_ _  
_ _why is everyone surprised that i show up at my job (11:03 AM)_

* * *

The next few days pass by in a haze. A tense, antsy haze, during which Crowley finds herself snapping at people even more than usual.

At least, Rose’s “see you” means that she won’t visit anymore before leaving for whatever new destination she’s bound to this time. So, there’s that. Crowley vents a bit about it with Anathema when she comes by. She hasn’t told Zira about the Satan nickname yet. She wants to. She doesn’t want to wait until Saturday to tell her about that, to ask her how she would like a trip to a care home in Oxfordshire, to just talk. She hadn’t realised how much she'd come to rely on that sympathetic, smart, sharp sounding board. It makes her a little scared, if she’s honest.

Beez listens to Michael’s multiple proposals about Ligur’s replacement and shoots them down one by one. As much as the situation is entertaining, working with an increasingly frustrated Michael is not.

“What’s wrong, now?” Crowley asks when she storms back into their office, visibly annoyed in a way that’s uncharacteristic of her. She’s more prone to stewing and brooding than smashing her heels on the floor and flopping in her office chair with a scowl.

“She says that stealing Mary Hodges from Celestial would be ‘questionable’ and ‘a declaration of war’.” Michael mimics Beez’s voice in an exaggerated manner. It’s strange to see her not sucking up to her superiors; Crowley almost admires it. “Like that’s ever stopped us. Hodges’ novels would be a better fit for Cerberus anyway.”

Crowley spots Newton looking at her in confusion. “Because of the Satanism,” she explains, before turning back to Michael. “Hodges would never leave Celestial anyway. We’ve got nothing to offer her that upstairs can’t deliver, and you know it.”

“ _She_ doesn’t want anybody,” Michael replies, looking at the wall that separates their office from Beez’s with a disgusted expression. “She wants Ligur or nothing.”

“Well, unless we find a lost manuscript or learn how to raise the dead, I don’t see many chances of that happening,” Crowley snaps, and then bites her tongue. 

She doesn’t look away from her screen, but she doesn’t need to: Michael’s reproach is broadcast on the airwaves, clear like a wartime bulletin, and Newt’s chair squeaks when he cowers behind his useless computer screen.

“Well, what is _your_ proposal?” asks Michael over the sound of aggressive mouse-clicking.

“I’m working on it right now,” Crowley lies.

Yes, that’s what she should do. But she has a one-track mind and she can’t even bring herself to be mad about it.

What she does, instead of looking for a way to ensure the continuation of her job and livelihood, is open a new tab and type _zira fell_ in the search box.

For all her supposed obsession, she has never googled Zira before. When she does, all she can find is a page on Cerberus’ website with her contact information and a picture. 

And that's it. 

Crowley opens another tab, and another. There's no mention of Zira Fell on any social media, nor in Westminster School's alumni list. She tries looking for _Fell_ alone, but none of the first names that pop up along with it sound even vaguely like Zira could be their nickname.

It’s like she doesn’t exist.

* * *

It’s been a while since the last time she went to the British. School trip, some twenty years ago. No, she came to the library once or twice while writing her dissertation. A harrowing experience all around. She can take or leave the museum — she’s more of an NHM girl herself, and she’s not big on the stolen artifacts — but even she has to admit the Great Hall is something.

It’s like a temple, or a cathedral, with the white marble, the columns and the light pouring in from the high glass ceiling. It’s what Celestial headquarters wish they were. Crowley’s grateful for her sunglasses.

It’s a Saturday afternoon, so the large, circular hall is filled with visitors: tourists, families and couples walk together, take photographs and shop. Their voices are garbled by the echo.

Crowley makes a beeline for the cafe and orders a coffee, then waits until two adjacent metal stools are free. She sits down on one and props a leg on the other. She’s an hour early.

Which leaves her with plenty of time to think and remember.

_(She’s on that balcony again, of course. Crowley takes her hands away from Zira’s shoulders, but she’s hesitated too much, she knows. The imprint of her fingers has marked Zira’s clothes, their warmth must still linger on her skin. Crowley wants to smooth the creases, leave no trace._

_Zira talks for the both of them. “I should have told you sooner. You deserve the truth, Crowley. All of it.”)_

Her phone starts vibrating with an incoming call, shattering the daydream she’s fallen into. She squirms to peel it out of her back pocket.

Zira’s name is on the display. 

_Don’t even start_ , she tells herself, nipping the catastrophizing in the bud. There could be many reasons for Zira to call her, and not all of them have to lead to the Apocalypse.

Crowley brings the phone to her ear. “Everything okay?” she asks, keeping her tone deliberately breezy. See, she can be spontaneous, if she tries hard enough.

“You’re early.”

Crowley straightens her back, darting her eyes around, trying to spot Zira in the crowd.

“Up here.”

Crowley looks at the ceiling instinctively, then lowers her gaze a bit.

From where she’s sitting, she can barely see the plexiglas runway that connects the top of the library to the main building. There, with her arms on the clear railing, in a dress the same colour as her hair, is Zira. She holds the phone to her ear with one hand and waves discreetly with the other, until she’s certain that Crowley’s seen her.

She’s here. Crowley didn’t realise she was so on edge until the tension left her body. “Come down. I’ve saved you a seat.”

The faraway shape of Zira doesn’t move. “I, um. I think I will stay here. If it’s not too much trouble.”

Crowley slides her leg down from the stool and clears her throat. “No, it’s fine. Though, if you wanted to do this by phone, we could have saved ourselves the trouble and stayed home.”

She hears Zira laugh weakly. “I think, if I’m really going to tell you… I think I need to see you.” She scoffs. “I know this is _ridiculous_. Don’t think for a moment that I’m not aware. Bear with me? Please? I’m… not quite myself right now.”

Warmth blooms in Crowley’s chest, and she smiles despite herself. “Would it still be us, if it wasn’t ridiculous?”

There’s a short, soft, affectionate silence on the line. Zira must have noticed the way Crowley said “us”. Crowley really, really hopes she noticed. “I suppose not. I wonder why that is.”

“We must have pissed off some god in a previous life.” Crowley takes a sip of coffee, just because she needs something to do that isn’t staring upwards. It’s cold and awful, but it’s the slap in the face she needed. “So. You’re the balcony girl.”

There’s another pause. Crowley cannot see the crease between Zira’s eyebrows, the one she always wants to smooth, but she knows it’s there. “Well. You are, too.”

Huh. That’s a thought.

“It’s not easy to get accustomed to the idea, isn’t it? I’ve had my time to come to terms with that, so it’s only fair if you need some more,” Zira goes on. “I almost had a heart attack when I figured out who you were.”

They’re really going to talk about it. Crowley wants to pinch herself. They are in the process of talking about it. “ _When_ did you?”

“Not immediately. Sometimes after our official introduction.”

Not on the bus, then. “Before the oysters?”

“Oh, well before the oysters, I’d say.”

Crowley almost falls from her seat. “That was a week and a half after you started working at Cerberus! You’ve known who I was for a _month_?”

“My dear, I’m so sorry. I have no excuse. I understand if you’re angry. I would be.”

Zira’s voice is collected on the surface, but Crowley can sense the fault lines under it. Just knowing they’re there is a privilege, she realises: for all that Zira always acts sweet and warm with everyone, she doesn’t really let people close. But she’s different around Crowley. She doesn’t know why it took her so long to see it. “No, you wouldn’t. You’d forgive me without even letting me apologise. And you forget something.” _I’m in love with you._ “I know you. You must have had your reasons.”

Zira sighs again, and when she speaks she allows some nervousness to creep into her voice. “Crowley, I’m going to tell you something, even if it’s probably not for the best.” She pauses. Crowley waits. “It’s absolutely not for the best. But you have to know.”

You’d think she would be used to this by now, to being constantly on edge. But she feels a little nauseated. _Just tell me,_ she wants to say. _I can’t stand this anymore._ “You really don’t need to, if you don’t want to,” is what comes out of her mouth.

Zira hasn’t even heard her. She starts pacing on the empty runway. “You need to promise you won’t tell anybody, especially at work.” Her voice is a shaky thing, her words pouring one after the other. “Not even Beez. She knows, but she mustn’t know that you know. It will change… well, everything, but you need to… If we are going to… You need to know. And, after, if you don’t want anything to do with me anymore, I’ll… I’ll understand.”

The exasperation that has been building since the beginning of Zira’s speech is almost painful. Crowley takes off her glasses, folds them with one hand and hooks them on her shirt. “Are you a criminal?”

Zira stops pacing. “Excuse me?”

“Are you involved in, I don’t know, human trafficking?”

There’s a sharp intake of breath, before an outraged “Crowley!” comes out of the speaker.  
Crowley smirks. She loves hearing Zira say her name in that appalled way. She loves that whatever Crowley says to scandalise her, Zira can one-up her any day, if she wants to. She loves the woman on the phone. No revelation can change that. “Don’t tell me you really are a princess.”

“Crowley, I’m trying to be serious.”

“I’m sorry, I’m not the one who’s hiding a life-changing secret.” The lonely figure on the railway is white and gold and looking in her direction. Crowley takes pity on her and stops needling. “Hey, listen. I’m here. I’m not going anywhere. Worst-case scenario, I make fun of you for…” _For the rest of our lives._ “For as long as you’ll want me around. Go on, then. I’m listening.”

For a few seconds, all Crowley hears on the line is Zira’s breathing. Then: “Do you remember our conversation on the balcony?”

“Yeah, it was only a few days ago.”

“The other one, my dear. The first one.”

“Oh.” It’s been a lot longer than a few days, but she remembers. She answers carefully. “Yes. The gist of it, anyway. We talked about our parents a lot.”

“Yes, we did. Do you recall what I told you about my mother?”

 _What does that have to do with anything?_ Crowley wants to ask, but she doesn’t. She has to let Zira get to the point in her own time, even if it takes a century. “I remember that you weren’t very close. She was from the States?”

“Well… you know more about her than that. In fact, you know her.”

Maybe the reason Zira wants to have this conversation in a separate place is so Crowley can’t strangle her in frustration. “Zira—”

“Don’t call me that.” There’s a gasp, followed by a muffled sound, and Crowley can’t see it because Zira’s turned her back on her, but she pictures a hand covering Zira’s mouth, as if she could take back the words that have just come out of it.

Her breath is heavy and shaky, and Crowley comes to a decision that’s been brewing for some time. She stands up. She knows that she has to act quickly, before Zira turns around and sees that she’s no longer in the cafe.

She runs to the front of the Great Hall, dodging people and ruining more than one photograph, and she takes the closest of the twin staircases that reach around the library. “Okay, that’s fine. I can do that. You don’t need to tell me everything now, take your time. Tell me what you want me to call you, and I will.” She keeps talking with a steady voice, to mask the fact that she’s climbing the steps two at a time. They become narrower and narrower, and lucky for her the crowd thins as she goes up. 

Zira doesn’t say anything. Crowley needs to keep talking. “Do you want to know what I’ve called you in my head since I met you?” It’s going to be the most mortifying thing she’s ever said in her life, but she doesn’t care. 

She’s finally reached the top of the stairs, just before the runway. Zira’s in front of her, right where she left her, head bowed, phone pressed against her ear. Crowley vaguely notices a few more details as she ends the call: Zira’s dress has thin white and gold stripes; her hair is down, pulled over a shoulder. She looks small.

“Angel,” Crowley says when she’s close enough.

Zira looks up abruptly, her eyes widening. She lowers the phone that’s no longer calling anyone. There’s no distance anymore, no screens, no separation.

Thankfully, miraculously, there’s also nobody else around.

Crowley tries to swallow, but her mouth is so parched that nothing happens. Her throat and lungs hurt, too, because she just ran more than she’s done in the past month and she’s horribly out of shape. “That’s what I call you,” she adds, and — surprising nobody more than herself — she survives it.

Zira looks like she’s about to cry, but she doesn’t. She doesn’t step closer, but she doesn’t run away either. 

Crowley risks another step forward, and then another, until she’s on the runway. “It’s fine, angel. I’m here. Not going anywhere.” She takes a deep breath, both because she needs to and to steady herself. “I knew that Zira Fell wasn’t your real name.” 

The flummoxed fluttering of Zira’s eyelids is adorable. “You did?”

“I’ve googled you. I can put two and two together. You lied to get this job. But you said that Beez knows, and if she knows, upstairs must too.”

Zira looks down, then meets Crowley’s eyes again. An apologetic smile flutters on her lips. This is it. “You’re right. I lied to get this job, and Zira Fell is not my real name. And yes, management definitely knows, but it’s… a bit more complicated than that.” Finally, _finally_ , Zira takes a step forward, meeting Crowley halfway. 

She holds out her hand, as if they were meeting for the first time. The effect would be more dramatic if it wasn’t shaking, but Crowley appreciates the flair nonetheless. “Hello, my name is Aziraphale Goddard. Frances Goddard is my mother.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you from the bottom of what remains of my heart to the usual suspects and to Tawny Owl for the A+ virtual tour through the British Museum.
> 
> One of the reasons it took me so long to post this was because of a TMA one-shot that just wanted to be written. I'm telling you here because there's a surprisingly large intersection between these two fandoms and who knows, maybe some of you might be interested in that! (Mind the tags, the thing is [here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24801943).)
> 
> I also posted my AU for the Good AUmens event, [_a halcyon day_](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24820438), also known as sad Wives on a beach in Southern France, if that's your thing.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First, an announcement regarding the chapter count, which as you can see has gone up a little. It will probably shift again, but not by much (if I can help it!)
> 
> Then, you should check out [this lovely fanart](https://ladypfenix.tumblr.com/post/622494838173089793/i-am-not-an-accomplished-or-patient-artist-by-any) of chapter 6 by ladypfenix, and [this one](https://saretton.tumblr.com/post/622639858102452224/im-no-artist-like-at-all-but-i-simply-had-to) by my delightful friend Saretton.
> 
> Last but not least, I'm always very grateful to my betas, seekwill and trailingoff, who make everything 10000% better. Idk guys, I must have done something really good in my past life to deserve all these people! ♥

Five seconds.

It takes Crowley five seconds to give in to her first impulse and shake Zira’s hand. Part of it is her weird compulsion to act on instinct when she’s under stress. And, when people introduce themselves, you shake their hand.

But part of her knows that she’s doing something else.

“Hello, Aziraphale.” The name feels foreign on her tongue. She’ll rehearse it later, try it on for size. “I’m Antonia J. Crowley. I talk to my plants and I have the worst case of sweet tooth you’ve ever seen.”

She can tell from Zira’s stunned expression that she wasn’t expecting any of it. “What?” she whispers, so shocked that she forgets her manners.

Crowley feels strangely pleased. She knows she must appear so composed from the outside, but it’s just because she’s still processing. Wait until her brain catches up with the fact that they’re still holding hands. “My deepest secrets. You told me yours. We’re even.”

Zira’s eyes are almost twice as big as usual. Blinking, she lets out a shaky breath that’s the distant relative of a laugh. “I already know about your sweet tooth, dearest. But I didn’t know you had plants.”

Relief floods through Crowley with such a rush that she feels dizzy. God, she’s a mess. “See? I’m as sneaky as you are.”

Now Zira laughs in earnest. It’s the most beautiful sound Crowley’s ever heard. “You are _not._ ”

“I am too! Mysterious.”

“You wish you were.” Zira bites her bottom lip, squeezes Crowley’s hand and then lets it go, slipping from her fingers like water. 

(And it’s such a cheesy thought, a new low even for her, but Crowley’s hand feels blessed, holier than the other parts of her body.)

“Let’s go somewhere,” she says, swatting away those toe-curling thoughts. “Tell me everything.”

A split-second hesitation, and Zira nods.

Five minutes later, they’re back at the café. On the empty seat between them sits Zira’s purse, a half-hearted attempt to keep up a charade Crowley has given up trying to see the point of. If it makes Zira feel more comfortable, she’s fine with it.

She looks at Zira without turning her head. She still can’t see anything of Frances Goddard in her, not physically nor in her demeanour. All this time, she’s been falling for her boss’ daughter. She can’t think about it, because she’ll start laughing and never stop. 

How is it possible? How could she not know that Frances Goddard had a daughter? Has Gabriel ever mentioned a half-sister? Crowley’s always been on top of even the more inane office gossip, but she needs to reevaluate her skills.

As she’s tackling a minor existential crisis, Zira is stirring her tea in silence, looking for the right starting point. When she finds it, Crowley quickly shushes her inner monologue so she can pay attention.

“When you and I met for the first time, as you may remember, my father had just died and my mother was attempting to climb to the top of Celestial Publishing.” Zira’s voice is even and her eyes are focused on her tea. Crowley suspects the precious script for this conversation is written on the bottom of her cup. “Gabriel was still in America, then, and I couldn’t have counted on him regardless. We never got along. For a few months, I just… survived. I focused on homework, books, fencing.”

 _Fencing?_ Crowley perks up, blinking.

“Later,” Zira says before she can ask. “My mother tried her best, but I just felt so tired all the time. And then I met you.” Zira’s still looking in her cup, but smiles nonetheless. “I wasn’t the kind of kid who went to parties and kissed people like it didn’t mean anything, in case you haven’t surmised that.”

The outraged spluttering that comes out of Crowley’s mouth almost makes Zira turn towards her. Almost. “What, do you think _I_ was? Do you think it didn’t mean anything to me?”

“Well, I know it _now._ ” Zira taps her fingers on the teacup. Her whole body is tense and she looks one wrong answer away from bolting, so Crowley bites her tongue. “I know _you,_ now.” The tapping stops. “But back then… You were so pretty and sophisticated, Crowley, and I was, well… me. I was just waiting for you to laugh at me, tell me you did it as a lark or you lost a bet or something. That’s why I ran away when your friends showed up. I didn’t want to ruin that perfect moment.”

Crowley is too nonplussed to be hurt, and even if she had the presence of mind — or the inclination — to take offence, the way Zira’s voice cracks wouldn’t allow her.

Zira heaves the sigh of someone who’s putting something firmly behind their back, and it better stay there. “I have a degree in English literature. Did I ever tell you?”

Crowley takes the change of subject in stride. “I always took it for granted.” She can imagine a younger version of Zira trotting to her classes, diligently taking notes and crushing her exams, dealing with an unspeakable loss, while she had nobody with whom to share her pain. “You didn’t have friends at uni, did you?”

Zira makes a little _mh_ in the back of her throat. “How did you know?” Crowley just shrugs, and Zira picks up where she left off. “It wasn’t all bad. I didn’t… hate Oxford.” 

_Of course it was Oxford._

“I took as many classes as I could. It was hard and lonely, but it gave me a sense of purpose. It all came crashing down once I graduated.” She pauses. “My mother didn’t even wait for the ceremony to end before she told me there was a job for me at Celestial. She didn’t ask, she just told me. As if she had just been indulging my whims and it was time for me to go back to real life.”

“But you said no,” Crowley guesses, and Zira nods.

“She took it better than I thought she would, but now I know she just wanted to see how long it would take for me to knock at her door again.” She moves the cup on its saucer in slow half circles. The tea must be cold by now. “It seems that I’m not cut out for teaching. I tutored, I worked in a coffee shop, I wrote papers for students. Your usual Oxford fare. I hated every moment of it. I had 12-hour days and it was barely enough to keep a roof over my head. That’s been my life for the past ten years.”

She looks at the ceiling and sighs again, and Crowley wonders if there’s a way she can take the burden on Zira’s shoulders and carry it for her. If it exists, she’ll find it.

“Then I started feeling tired again. It was just like when my dad died. Exhaustion felt like loss, and I felt it all the time. So I did the only thing I could. Swallowed my pride and knocked at my mother’s door.”

“Oh, love.” The pet name slips out of Crowley’s lips before she can stop it, but Zira doesn’t seem to notice.

“We reached a compromise.” She speaks louder now, faster. “I would work for her, but not in the main imprint, and under a different name. People treat you differently when they know you’re a Goddard. Just ask Gabriel.”

“So she made Beez hire you.”

“No!” Zira sits straighter, looking a bit more like herself. “I demanded a real interview, even if the vacancy wasn’t advertised and I had no competition. Beez didn’t know who I was until the interview was over.”

Oh, to be a fly in that room, only to see Beez’s reaction to that particular piece of news.

“We agreed on a four-month trial. Then, if she was happy with me and if I wanted to stay, she would hire me permanently, under my real name.”

A timeline unrolls in Crowley’s mind. Four months. That means December. “Will you stay?”

The question is out of her mouth before she can rein it in, before she realises its magnitude. It doesn’t escape Zira, though, who’s looking down again. “I don’t know. I really don’t. I assumed four months would be enough to make up my mind. But, um… but a few unexpected variables were thrown my way.”

 _Yeah, mine too._ “That’s why Beez said what she said,” Crowley realises suddenly. “If it comes down to the two of us,” she explains, when Zira cocks her head questioningly, “she can’t fire you.”

Zira looks like she’s swallowing a bitter pill or five, but she doesn’t deny it. “She’s trying to protect you.”

She says it with a self-assurance that makes Crowley raise her eyebrows and lean even more on the table. _I’m listening._

Suddenly, the collected façade crumbles, revealing that underneath all that calm Zira is just as nervous as Crowley. “She knows that, in a workplace… that _things_ can… And I would never want to _presume,_ of course… think that you’d want to… I’m just saying that any kind of… of _thing_ in the workplace… could… could…” Crowley can only see one of her cheeks, but she knows there’s a matching splotch of red on the other one.

Listening to Zira lose her composure over the course of a sentence is always entertaining, but her idea that _presuming_ is somehow too much now makes Crowley laugh. Zira has always _presumed;_ she’s always been the one pushing, scheduling dates and meetings.

It should rub Crowley the wrong way, and it does, a little. She really, _really_ dislikes games. But she also knows that Zira is the kindest person she’s ever met and she has just laid herself open in front of Crowley.

So she shoves her misgiving away — for now — and mercifully interrupts the blabbering that is still going on. “It’s not true.”

“… and the thought that… What isn’t true?”

“That everybody looks at you differently when they know your name.” Making eye contact is excruciating, and Crowley’s blush is so intense that it reaches her brain, but she forces herself to do it. “I don’t. You’re still Zira from publicity. You’re not a surname, and you’re definitely not your mother.” She takes a deep breath. “I think you have an annoyingly strong moral compass and that you’re a right bastard when you put your mind to it.” _That’s why I love you._ “What I’m saying is, it doesn’t change anything.” Crowley flexes her right shoulder, the place that always hurts when a deadline’s approaching or she’s making a heartfelt speech to the woman she’s hopelessly in love with.

But Zira shakes her head. “You don’t understand. I won’t be just ‘Zira from publicity’ forever. I _am_ Aziraphale Goddard. Whether I want it or not, I’m part of my family and all that it entails.”

When Crowley straightens her back, her right shoulder screams at the audacity. “You talk like you don’t have any agency. Seems to me you’ve always lived your way.”

She can see Zira’s jaw working, feel the tension in her muscles. “The way I lived in Oxford, the way I’m living now… it’s pretend. It’s not what it’s going to be if I decide to stay at Celestial. It will be the talk of the town in the industry, for starters. My mother is going to insist I take on more responsibilities. There’s going to be a spotlight on me, at all times.” She hesitates. “And on whoever is with me.” Her voice peters out towards the end of the sentence, so low Crowley can barely hear her.

Crowley opens her mouth to reply, but Zira cuts her off. “I need to go, I’m sorry. I need to think about it. _You_ need to think about it.”

“I…” Crowley stops. _I don’t need to think about anything,_ she was about to say. _I want you, whatever version you want to give me._

A name is just a name. Except Zira has made it clear that’s not the case. A name is _not_ just a name. The possible future Zira has painted passes in front of her eyes like a funeral procession. Maybe Crowley _does_ need to think about it.

Too late, Crowley notices that Aziraphale is looking at her, waiting for her to finish the sentence, the worry line between her eyebrows deeper than ever. In her eyes, a stubborn glimmer of hope fades away. “Right, then.” Zira fidgets with the strap of her purse. “See you Monday at the office. I hope you have a good evening.”

She sounds like a recorded version of herself, so defeated that Crowley goes through a hundred possible answers in her head, but before she can settle on one Zira is already gone.

_Well, that went down like a fucking lead balloon._

* * *

Then it’s Monday morning. Again. Why does it feel like Mondays spawn more frequently than the other days of the week? Crowley’s certain there’s been more than one of them in a row. What’s a group of them called? A dreary of Mondays. No, a brood.

On the monitor in front of her, the text cursor blinks in and out of existence on the page where she should be editing Ligur’s manuscript. The thin black bar pulses like a heartbeat in the blank line between two paragraphs, highlighting the emptiness where words should be.

There’s something missing between paragraph number one and paragraph number two. Crowley knows it. The transition needs to be smoother. She knows because her gut tells her so. Unfortunately the gut is not the place where words come from, and her brain refuses to supply them, choosing to ponder other things ( _a suffering of Mondays?_ ) instead.

There’s a new squeak in her office chair, every time she swings it to the right. Her productivity is at an all-time low, and she doesn’t care. With her legs crossed, elbows propped on the desk, she pivots to test how long she can make the chair squeak before Michael flips.

She hasn’t seen Zira today yet. Every time someone walks past to go to the copy room, Crowley’s back-stabbing heart jumps. She has thought about Saturday’s discussion constantly. Her brain cells are no doubt planning a mutiny against her.

What she needs is a distraction, and Ligur’s protagonist’s inane adventures are not up to the task.

At the fourth squeak, Michael’s lips are drawn in a thin line. Six squeaks and Crowley can taste victory.

That’s when Michael’s landline rings. Crowley’s colleague grabs the handle like the device has offended her personally. Before she has the chance to say anything, Beez’s voice comes through the speaker loud enough for the whole office to hear.

“Call a meeting with the Frankfurt team at three.” _Click._

Crowley has never heard Michael curse before. Well, curse is a strong word: it’s a mild, sotto voce _damn_ that someone less attuned to profanities might miss, but not Crowley.

She interrupts her gyrations while her colleague slams down the handle so hard that something must have broken. “Like I don’t have my actual job to do,” she mutters, a little louder.

Oh, drama. Perfect. Crowley narrows her eyes and leans against the back of her chair, which makes a hellish noise. “But you love going to Frankfurt.”

It’s true. Everyone Crowley knows in the publishing industry hates going to the largest European book fair with a burning passion, except Michael. For an editor, it means sitting in a booth while agents and scouts throw their pitches at you like medieval peasants flinging rotten cabbages at pilloried wrongdoers, sleeping in cheap hotel rooms and eating questionable food for three days. Being a paltry junior editor, Crowley has never been there herself, but she sees Beez’s eyes turn glassy every time the name of the German city is mentioned.

Eyes closed, fingers at her temples, Michael takes a deep breath. “I also _love_ when people don’t address me like I’m their secretary, without so much as a please or a thank you.”

Her voice is velvety, but you’d have to be really stupid to miss the sulphur boiling underneath.

Crowley exchanges a brief glance with Newt, who looks alarmed but wisely stands by his tried and tested non-intervention policy.

“You know how Beez is,” says Crowley. ‘She would crumble to dust if she said please or thank you.”

Michael doesn’t look at her as she starts typing violently. “No, she wouldn’t. That’s the point.”

Crowley falls silent while her eyes widen. She has said worse things about Beez in her sleep, but Michael? This is the equivalent of grave slander on her part, and no amount of Monday morning can justify it.

Michael starts speaking again, and Crowley only realises she’s talking to her a few words in. “... because she’s like that with everyone, that it’s fair, but it’s not. We just let her be like that and take all the punches without saying anything.”

Is she still talking about Beez? To Crowley? “Um. First of all, I say plenty, and you always disapprove. Second, that’s just the way Beez is. You shouldn’t take it personally.”

Michael throws her hands up in another rare display of sentiment. “You’re not listening to me! That’s exactly what I…”

A loud alarm goes off, drowning out the rest of Michael’s sentence. Newt perks up, but Crowley waves her hand at them as she fishes her phone from under a pile of papers. “It’s just my phone, we’re not on fire. Sorry, I have to go.”

“Go where?” Michael almost screams, so caught up in the moment that she forgets her usual disregard for other people.

But Crowley is already bolting out the door, an old duffel bag on her shoulder. The cursor in Ligur’s manuscript, used to being ignored by now, blinks patiently.

* * *

She came up with the plan early this morning, just in time to toss a pair of harem pants and a t-shirt into a bag. She changes into them in the small antechamber outside the fifteenth floor’s solarium and quietly opens the door.

When Crowley steps in, the head of every person in the room turns towards her. Suddenly, she’s the centre of attention in a small crowd. She scans everyone — she’s paralysed on the doorstep, she might as well make the most of it — and finally she zeroes in on platinum hair and wide blue eyes. Zira’s here. Good.

Before she can wave at her (or run away, both viable options), Tracy says cheerfully, “Look what the cat dragged in.”

Crowley pales, but Tracy doesn’t seem to remember how Crowley said she could sit and be miserable at her desk too, or she doesn’t care, and she gestures mercifully in front of her. “We saved a place for you.”

Blinking, Crowley notices an empty mat. “You didn’t know I was coming.”

“Somebody always insists,” Tracy explains, mysteriously.

As Crowley takes her seat, Zira seems very focused on counting all the chairs piled against the wall. _“I would never want to presume” my arse,_ Crowley thinks, shaking her head.

Sitting with her legs crossed — something she’s able to do without compromising the structural integrity of her knees, this time — she avoids looking at anyone except Tracy, who waits for her to settle in before beginning the session.

“Now that we’re all here, let’s close our eyes and take the deepest breath we’ve taken today.”

Ignoring her self-consciousness as best she can, Crowley complies.

“Today we’ll talk about change,” Tracy says.

And those are the last words Crowley pays attention to for a while.

She doesn’t know exactly what she hoped to achieve by crashing the mindfulness class, since what she and Zira really need to do is talk and, unless at least one of them suddenly develops telepathic powers, there’s no chance of that happening here. She just… she supposes she just wants to show Zira she’s still here for her. That yes, the rug that was pulled from under Crowley’s feet looked more like a red carpet than a Qazvin, but even if she’s still processing, she’s not going anywhere.

“And now let’s shift the focus to our breath.”

Sending a wordless apology to the part of her body or the room or the cosmos that found itself deprived of her attention until now, Crowley slaps her focus back to her breath.

“As we let the air go in and out with our breath’s natural rhythm, I want you to think about a great change in your past.”

Crowley arches her eyebrows, then she remembers she’s supposed to stay still. _Too easy. Up the ante, Tracy._

“You can pick a small change or a big one. When you have it clear in your mind, I want you to remember the emotions attached to it: fear, excitement, worry, something else entirely?”

 _The whole caboodle._ Crowley flexes her right shoulder instinctively.

Tracy lets the class sit with that thought for what feels like ten hours but is probably less than thirty seconds. “Change can be unsettling: even the most daring of us are comfortable in familiarity. But our fears amplify the magnitude of change.”

 _Oh, I’ll just tell my unreasonable fears to get lost, then._ Crowley hasn’t completely forgotten that her presence here has nothing to do with participating in the class, but she just can’t stop the running commentary in her head.

“What we often forget is that being afraid is not only natural, but also a perfectly reasonable response.”

_Oh._

“Don’t push it away. Sit with it, recognise it.”

In the long pause that follows Tracy’s invitation, Crowley tries — she really tries — to do it. Facing her fears is not something she’s good at. Lack of practice. She’s so much better at pushing them away.

Except she’s not, manifestly. The fear of losing Zira, of being helpless to keep her, weighs on Crowley like a boulder. Which cannot be good for her back.

“And now… let it go.”

Crowley can’t help a snort, and she hears a few other muffled laughs around her.

The loudest, and the most confident, is Tracy’s. “I know. It’s easier said than done. Letting go is an acquired skill. It can bring peace and relief, but it doesn’t come naturally. Not the first time, nor the second. But, with time, if you keep trying, it will become instinctual. Think of it as playing a musical instrument.”

Speaking of instinct. With another quick plea for forgiveness to the meditation gods for breaking the mindfulness rules — she will look into it, promise, she’ll catch up and do everything right — Crowley opens her eyes. 

She doesn’t push away her fear, which is not that hard after all, given its looming, giant presence. But she doesn’t ignore her hope either, the scrawny wee creature overshadowed by its twin.

And it works out, whatever strange exercise this is (maybe Crowley will pick up an instrument next, if it’s this easy — she’s heard good things about the violin), because Zira is looking at her too and goes adorably flustered when they make eye contact.

Crowley’s grin doesn’t go away even when she closes her eyes again.

There are good chances they will be okay.

* * *

“I’m waiting for your proposals,” Beez says before Crowley even closes the office door.

When her boss summoned Crowley to her office, right after the mindfulness class, Crowley’s mind had been too busy replaying recent events to worry properly. 

As her boss squints at her from behind her desk, Crowley can’t help but roll her eyes. “I’ve made it, and you rejected it.”

“Proposal _s,_ you walking headache. Plural. Was that all you got?”

It _is_ true that, when Beez asked them to pitch authors at her, only Michael had taken her seriously. And, judging from Michael’s recent nervous breakdown and Beez’s tetchiness, it’s not going well.

Still. “What do you think of Mary Hodges?” Crowley tries, fully expecting Beez to snap.

Instead, she sighs, reaches for the pack of cigarettes she doesn’t even bother to hide anymore and lights one. _She cares even less than before,_ Crowley realises with a jolt. Impressive, though slightly worrying.

After the first puff of smoke, Beez speaks. “You really care about that old lady’s biography.” It’s not a question. Her even tone and calm demeanour terrify Crowley more than if she was shouting. Beez turns to the shelves behind her — the spiritual twins of Crowley’s desk — pulls a thick manuscript out of a messy pile of papers and slams it on her desk. 

The noise is so loud that Crowley jumps, fully expecting the desk to crack and crumble under the weight of that monster.

It’s in A4 format, spiral-bound, looking exactly like the kind of self-published horror that someone with no knowledge of publishing or etiquette would print and give to the editor in chief of a renowned imprint. Crowley has read a couple of them when she couldn’t avoid her slush-pile responsibilities. The mere thought triggers her gag reflex.

She looks at the manuscript, and then at Beez.

Beez looks at her, and then at the manuscript.

Crowley backs away, as if putting some distance between her and _the horror, the horror_ could do any good. “No. Oh, no, no, no.”

“Would it help if I told you that it hurts me more than it hurts you?”

“Absolutely not!”

“Wouldn’t be true anyway.” Beez pats the cover of the manuscript, an appalling sheet of translucent blue plastic. “I need you to read this.”

“Why me?” She knows she’s whining. She will grovel, if she thinks that will give her a better chance of dodging this bullet.

Beez keeps speaking in a reasonable tone of voice. It’s unsettling. “I need someone who’s unbiased and not completely incompetent, and you’re the only one in the intersection of that diagram.”

Against her better judgement, Crowley looks at the name on the cover. It takes her a couple of seconds to spell _Gabriel Goddard_ upside down, but the blow is not softened by the delay. “You’ve got to be _kidding_ me.”

At least Beez looks as disgusted as Crowley feels. “I wish I were.”

Below the fog of revulsion, two dots suddenly connect in Crowley’s brain. “Is that why he sent you flowers?”

Instead of answering, Beez takes the thick manuscript and, without any warning, throws it at Crowley, who catches it instinctively amidst a rustle of pages. “There’s going to be an auction in two weeks. This is confidential information, so I need an assessment before Frankfurt to show we’ve done our homework, return the favour. Now go.”

With a groan, Crowley puts the manuscript back together as best she can. She was going to have lunch, but she’s lost her appetite. “Did you know he had a manuscript?”

Beez doesn’t look away from her monitor. “How long have you been working here? Everybody has a manuscript.” Her mouse clicks twice. “Read this thing and I’ll reconsider your proposal.”

Crowley freezes. She feels like a disillusioned bird-watcher who’s just seen a rare bird land in front of them on their lunch break. “Seriously?”

“I said I’ll _reconsider_ it.” 

Beez’s tone would put a glacier to shame, but a concession through gritted teeth is still a concession, and hope has already had a foothold in Crowley’s chest since the mindfulness class. Pushing it away would require an effort she doesn’t feel like making, right now.

“I’m not promising you anything,” Beez continues. “Look, I know two things: one, that manuscript is shit,” she says, counting on her fingers. When she lifts the second, her eyes fix on Crowley with the intensity of Medusa, and Crowley obligingly feels her muscles turn to stone. “Two: we need to snatch it.”

* * *

“You know, when I asked Anathema if there was anything you’re not supposed to eat, she wasn’t sure,” Crowley says, waiting for Agnes to pick a date from the box Crowley’s grabbed at the ministore before driving to Tadfield.

“It doesn’t make much of a difference, at my age.” Agnes pops the date in her mouth.

Picking up a date herself, Crowley shrugs. “Still. Would have been disappointing if I poisoned you.”

The sun through the gently swaying leaves of the orchard’s only apple tree bathes them both in a mottled light. It probably makes Crowley look like she has a skin condition, but it suits Agnes just fine, with her thick grey hair and the coloured shawls on her shoulders — too many for just one woman, Crowley thinks, but she doesn’t even dream of objecting. Agnes looks sculpted in stone, eternal, like an oracle or a prophetess or something equally worthy of veneration, if a bit batty.

Agnes chortles. “I’ve come to terms with my mortality.”

She didn’t remember Crowley this time, but Crowley doesn’t take it personally. Anathema said it could happen. Still, the nurse on shift recognised Crowley, and nodded when she asked if she could take her elder friend into the gardens and, apropos of nothing, if Agnes was allowed to eat dates.

It’s a very nice day. All the days have been nice, this October. The last time it rained, Crowley hadn’t known Zira’s real name.

The olympian calm that descended on her during the mindfulness class has mostly dissipated. The shoulder-ache is back in all its glory, and it’s all Crowley can do to avoid bouncing her leg or tapping her fingers. She’s comfortable in Agnes’ presence, but she wants to keep the scattered version of herself under a lid for as long as she can.

The upside of having a wise, kind woman with Alzheimer’s as a friend is that Crowley can tell her both classified and deeply embarrassing information without fear. Not all of it, of course: Crowley cares too much for Agnes to inflict upon her the worst of her self-doubting auto-flagellations.

But when Crowley comes to the end of her tale, Agnes doesn’t have any word of consolation for her. She levels a serafic look at Crowley and decrees: “Talk to the damn woman.”

Crowley almost chokes on the date she’s just popped in her mouth. “Agnes!”

“Don’t talk with your mouth full, child. She loves you, and you love her, so you’re just wasting your time. And mine.”

Chewing morosely, Crowley elects to ignore the “child” — she’s through more than a third of her life expectancy, thank you — and most of all the “she loves you”. The memo doesn’t reach the region between her heart and her stomach, where an impromptu fireworks show is being set up. “It’s complicated, all right? We’re colleagues, and she’s…”

Agnes holds up a hand, and Crowley’s mouth snaps shut. “What do you want?”

Crowley waits a couple of seconds for her to elaborate. “As in…”

“As in, what do you want?” Agnes reaches for the box of dates, and Crowley instinctively holds it closer, so the old deviless can reach. “It’s a simple enough question.”

Mm. What _does_ she want? Christ, has she ever really thought about it? Well. Nicer colleagues would be a good start. Even though they’re not too bad, honestly. Michael could be more irritating, if she really wanted, and Beez… _She’s trying to protect you,_ Zira said at the British.

Crowley looks at her hands, cradling a half-empty box of dates. Does she want more friends? A couple of weeks ago she thought she didn’t have any, and her mother would have agreed. But now she’s not sure. Anathema has always been a work-friend, right, but a work-friend is still a _friend._ She thinks about Tracy and her patience, about Warlock, the little shit, about all the times she’s had an unspoken conversation with Newt across their respective desks.

And maybe there’s a part of her that wants Zira to be the nice, kind, beautiful publicist with a surprisingly sharp sense of humour and a chronic inability to wink. But her being the CEO’s daughter doesn’t really erase all that.

No, that’s not it. It’s going to be hell to navigate, sure, but if Zira’s in, she’s in.

“I want an answer,” Crowley says eventually.

Agnes, who was apparently taking a nap while Crowley went on her mind journey, opens her eyes. “Do you have the question?” she asks without missing a beat.

Before Crowley can answer, the wind picks up, whipping her hair over her face. “Hey, Agnes, what if I take you back inside before it starts pissing down?” she asks, brushing strands of hair from her mouth.

As she hands the closed box of dates to Agnes so her hands are free to push the wheelchair, the old woman chuckles. “A little water never killed anyone, Antonia.”

Crowley’s mouth opens and closes so fast that she bites her tongue. Nobody can see her smile, so she doesn’t bother hiding it. _Agnes remembered._ She’s never been so happy to be called by her first name in her life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One of my betas said that there are a lot of stories in which Gabriel tortures Crowley, but having to read his manuscript is "true whumpage". I'm sorry, Crowley!


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi! It's been a while. I've been fairly busy with good but exhausting stuff (trips, house renovations, and also a bit of _Horizon: Zero Dawn_ , though waaay less than I'd like). Good news is, I still remember how this writing thing goes!  
> Hope you're all been doing well and that you enjoy the chapter! I think we left off with Crowley reading a horrible manuscript and trying to formulate a certain question...

**—————— Today ——————**

**b_prince** 10:59 AM  
| wtf is the email you just sent

**ginger_ohara** 11:00 AM  
| see attachment

**b_prince** 11:00 AM  
| I SAW IT thats why im askign

**ginger_ohara** 11:00 AM  
| oh well then thats it

* * *

Crowley minimises the Slack window and goes back to editing the Ligur manuscript, humming under her breath with a spring in her step. Well, her fingers. The manuscript has not magically improved overnight — truth be told, the only real improvement could be if it found a way to delete itself — but the knowledge that Beez has read the email Crowley sent her last night fills her with glee.

There’s a huge chance that she’s ten seconds away from being fired.

At the other end of their office, Michael’s unease is palpable. “You’re smirking.” 

Without looking away from the screen, Crowley highlights a whole paragraph and deletes it with a flourish. “Nothing you should be worried about.” On the contrary, she hopes Michael has a stash of prosecco somewhere, so she can celebrate properly.

She knows her bliss will be short-lived, so she tries to enjoy it for as long as she can. This moment is a thin slice of elation between two slices of misery bread. And, right on cue, the ungodly noise of the editor-in-chief’s door opening harkens the end of this short golden age, followed by Beez stomping down the hall. One floor down, people must be under their desks, waiting for the earthquake to stop.

When, out of the corner of her eye, she sees her boss darkening the doorway, diminutive but menacing like a pocket-sized storm cloud, Crowley starts unspooling from her chair with an exaggerated sigh. “In your office, I know.”

“Stop.” Beez raises her finger, and Crowley freezes, a dog who’s been told to stay.

The longer the silence extends, the more she starts to feel like one, too, because Beez is not shouting like she expected. She hasn’t even told Crowley to change her username. Something’s very wrong.

“If you come close to me now, I’ll strangle you, so stay there.” Her voice is low, but sea monsters are writhing below the calm surface. “When I ask you to do something, it’s not a polite request. If it doesn’t suit your whims, if you don’t fancy it, you don’t get to shit on my authority and pull something like _that._ ”

Crowley raises her hands defensively. “It was a waste of time.”

“Don’t talk back to me!” _Now_ Beez is shouting. With a visible effort, she collects herself and takes a breath so deep it wouldn’t be out of place in a mindfulness class. “Come in my office. In five minutes,” she adds, when Crowley is once again about to stand up. “I can’t deal with you right now.”

* * *

“You must be under the mistaken impression that some god is protecting you.”

That’s a fair assumption, even though it implies a premeditation on Crowley’s part. “You always say the first twenty pages of a manuscript will tell you if it’s good or not.” She pauses to see if Beez will open her eyes. 

Her boss is slumped in her office chair and hasn’t moved a muscle since Crowley knocked and entered. Her eyes stay closed, but she seems to be listening, so Crowley goes on. “I read thirty pages before writing that email. That’s really all you need to know about that manuscript, I swear.”

Despite her misgivings, yesterday evening Crowley set aside a few hours to read Gabriel’s manuscript. She owed it to Agnes, at the very least. _Read this thing and I’ll reconsider your proposal,_ Beez said. Crowley ought to try.

That didn’t make the actual sacrifice any easier.

Even though she avoids reading unsolicited manuscripts as much as she can, skirting the slush pile with experienced ease, Crowley has a routine nevertheless. She finds going over this stuff with alcohol in her veins a little bit easier, so yesterday evening she hovered beside her liquor selection and toyed with the idea of fixing herself a cocktail, before pouring two fingers of straight vodka into a tumbler. Then she settled on the couch and opened the thing, discovering it was typed in left-aligned Calibri, which required an extra splash of vodka in her glass.

Despite the alcohol, she felt extremely lucid when she wrote her assessment, all four words of it, and emailed it to Beez. Yes, she reread it twice to make sure there weren’t any egregious spelling mistakes. She couldn’t have Beez thinking she was half-arsing that.

(She doesn’t think about how, after most of the original vodka had left her glass, she was about to gripe with Zira about the manuscript. When she opened their conversation, she found out that the last text was a message from Before, Zira telling her she was running late to a lunch date. Crowley let her phone fall on the couch and went back to the manuscript.)

At last, Beez opens her eyes and gives her a level stare. “This is not about how good the manuscript is, and you know it.”

_This is not the time to be confrontational,_ Crowley tells herself, crossing her arms. _Win her over with logic and facts._ “First of all, it should be. Second, I wasn’t kidding. I can’t work on making it understandable to the average human being. Nobody can. It’s too far gone.”

“He’s never going to accept _this._ ” Beez points to her screen. Crowley can’t see it from this angle, but she knows that her email is on it.

“Then we tell him no. Beez, Beez,” Crowley cries out, raising her hands in a calming gesture, when she sees her boss about to explode. “I’m done with the bullshit. I’ll write you a proper assessment if you want, with a word count and all the trimmings, but you know that’s not the point. We can say no to him.”

It’s barely noticeable, the way Beez’s lips become thin. For a moment she seems to consider Crowley’s point of view. Crowley realises she’s holding her breath and forces herself to exhale quietly. She’s no good to anyone, passed out on the floor. 

“Nobody’s ever said no to that man,” Beez says eventually.

A shy little spark of triumph ignites in Crowley’s heart. It’s not a concession, but the terms of the conversation have shifted. She _knew_ Beez would be reasonable about it. And now, for the killing blow.

Crowley shrugs with deliberate indifference. “Don’t you want to be the first to do it?”

Instead of yelling at her to go back to her office and leave her alone — which is the outcome Crowley counts on, because it means Beez will think about what Crowley said — her boss leans forward and squints at her.

_Uh-oh._ Crowley doesn’t like her assessing look. She feels like Beez has seized the dagger she’s just thrown at her and is pointing it back. It’s not a good feeling. With sudden certainty, Crowley knows she’s not going to like her boss’ next words. “I think I’m going to leave that honour to you.”

Of course. Crowley’s used to her plans backfiring, but this is quite something. How is she going to sneak her way out of this one? Her laugh is forced and trembling. “That’s a little above my paygrade, isn’t it.”

“Not at all.” Beez’s voice runs like ice down Crowley’s back. “I always encourage my employees to take on more responsibilities.” The liar is grinning now. “Here’s your choice, then. You can either explain to everyone why we’re not bidding for the manuscript that could save us, or finish your assessment and wrap a nice little bow on it.”

Crowley clenches her fists. She feels dizzy, but she’s not going to give Beez the satisfaction of noticing it. She doesn’t know if her boss knows that Crowley knows — Christ, this office really _is_ the set of a soap opera — but the thing is, that’s not a choice at all.

_You need to think about it,_ Zira said at the British the other day. Crowley has and hasn’t. Despite Agnes’ brusque encouragement, her thoughts keep going around in circles like an anxiety carousel, and she’s thinking of giving her shoulder pain a name, since it seems bent on sticking around for the long run.

The way things are with Zira — or, better, the way they could turn out… Gabriel _could_ become part of Crowley’s life. Not that he's very much part of Zira’s as it is, but she'll never be able to pretend she’s not connected to him. People will talk.

God, Crowley sounds like her mother.

Mentally slapping her own wrist, she focuses back on the problem at hand. “I’m not fired, then?”

With a half smile, Beez leans back. Well, at least someone’s in good humour again. “Not yet.”

“Oh, goody,” sighs Crowley.

* * *

When Crowley comes back into the office, Michael does a very poor job of pretending she doesn’t care. She keeps on typing, but her indifference is forced, until she breaks. “What did you do, this time?”

In five years, Crowley has become pretty good at filtering out Michael’s comments. She has experience on that front, having been raised by her mother. Words slide off her like… whatever it is water slides off of.

But she _does_ have a breaking point, and she reached it a while ago. The pieces she’s been holding together with a bit of string and spite fall apart and clatter on the ground.

She turns towards Michael so fast her hair slaps her in the face. “What did _I_ do? Always my fault, right? Everything I do is wrong, or too much, or too little, right, Michael?” She pauses to take a breath, and maybe it’s the sudden oxygen intake that clears her head, maybe it’s Newt staring at her, or maybe the stunned look in Michael’s eyes — as if all she did was ask an innocent question and she doesn’t deserve to be shouted at like that! — and yes, Crowley _was_ shouting, she realises. 

Anyway, she exhales and, ignoring her shaking hands, grabs her bag and her phone and darts out of the office without looking back.

* * *

Her knock on Zira’s door is perfunctory, since she doesn’t wait for an answer before storming in and pulling her chair away from the desk. She’s breathless, even if all she did was come down the hall at a brisk, furious pace.

Covering the landline’s speaker with a manicured hand, Zira turns her head towards Crowley. A muffled voice keeps coming out of the phone as concern replaces surprise on Zira’s face.

Crowley goes to the other chair, the one she brought into Zira’s office herself when she was younger and life was simpler, and lets herself fall on it, dropping her bag on the floor beside her.

Without tearing her gaze from a sulking Crowley, Zira slowly lowers her hand. “Yes, well, as you’re certainly aware of, they will be out of office next week. No, unless attending a book fair counts as a vacation. Yes, you too. Goodbye.” She hangs up the phone and gives Crowley another look, taking in her scowl, her bouncing knee and everything else. She arches an eyebrow. “I see mindfulness is starting to work.”

Crowley slides a bit more down the chair. Coming here probably wasn’t the right thing to do, but she needed it. “Can I work here today? Please?”

“Crowley, while I sympathise with your situa—”

“I’m going to kill Michael, if I go back to the office,” Crowley says in what she hopes is a reasonable tone.

Zira sighs, but eventually she seems to agree that avoiding murder is probably for the best. “I’ll put the kettle on.”

A tiny fraction of the weight on Crowley’s shoulders eases off, and she settles in a bit more comfortably, resting her left ankle on her right knee and her head against a closed fist. Watching Zira move around the office in an easy silence is its own kind of meditation. Crowley can almost feel her nerves stop buzzing as they are progressively soothed. Zira would make a fortune if she could bottle and sell this stuff.

This unfortunately doesn’t last long. Without anything to focus on, Crowley’s thoughts are free to tread a well-known path. _Do you have the question?_ Agnes asked her. Crowley really, _really_ wants for the answer to that question to be _yes,_ but if she’s being honest it’s something like a helpless shrug. 

It shouldn’t be this hard. She knows what she wants. If feelings were the only variable, Crowley wouldn’t hesitate for a second. But her career and Zira’s family just _have_ to be in the way. If only they could… oh, run away, fly off together, go where nobody would pay them any attention. Just the two of them.

If Zira minds being stared at longingly by Crowley, she doesn’t let it show. As Crowley’s thoughts swirl around like the fake snow in one of those round glass thingies, she realises that she recognises a few of the clothes Zira’s wearing today, like her cardigan, the soft-looking one. They’ve known each other long enough now that they’ve circled through their wardrobe, or at least Zira has.

While Crowley is trying to find the words to describe how that thought makes her feel, Zira brings a clean mug down from a bookcase shelf — one of the few still clear of books, papers, boxes and various debris — and checks inside the one that’s already on her desk before emptying it in the potted plant.

“It was just water,” she says without looking at Crowley. “Don’t make that face.”

“What face,” retorts Crowley, who was absolutely making that face.

Five minutes later, with a mug full of steaming tea held under her nose so the comforting vapours can go straight to her brain cells, Crowley doesn’t feel like she’s about to murder someone anymore.

On the other side of the desk, leaning back into her chair with her legs crossed, Zira gazes at her from behind the steam of her own mug. She looks like the gal in that Delphi temple must have looked. “So, what happened?”

Instead of answering, Crowley reaches into her purse, pulls out the rolled-up manuscript and slides it on the desk towards Zira. “You’ve never seen this, for the record.”

With a look that says she’s only humouring Crowley because she’s clearly in a state, Zira takes the spiral-bound monstrosity and glances at it. She arches her eyebrows at the round stain on the cover (Crowley used it as a coaster before the vodka ran out at some point, last night), but when she reads the name of the author she lets it fall as if it were pornography. “Oh, good Lord.”

“Don’t worry, it doesn’t bite. But it will scar you, I can tell you that.”

Zira runs her hands over her cardigan absent-mindedly. “You have to assess this? If Beez is blackmailing you, you must tell HR.”

“Nnnh, blackmail _is_ a strong word.” She brings Zira up to date with recent developments, including the fight with Michael. When she’s done, her tea is approaching a drinkable temperature, and she takes a long sip, swallowing almost half the cup. 

Visibly refraining from commenting on that, Zira shakes her head slowly and hands Crowley the manuscript back. “It’s a good thing that Frankfurt’s coming soon.”

“Thank God, it is.” All the offices are half-empty, and there’s not much work because the entire industry is doing its dark bidding in Germany. Crowley loves Frankfurt for this reason as much as Michael loves it because she gets to be her obnoxious self abroad.

“I mean for Michael’s sake,” Zira specifies.

“Are you siding with _her?_ ” Crowley tries to ignore the way this betrayal stings. It doesn’t matter. It shouldn’t matter. She’s in the right, she knows it.

Zira waves her hand in a tired gesture, like she’s dismissing her. “You know whose side I’m on, you goose. But I’m not going to pretend you’re not always behaving like a child when she’s concerned.”

_She loves you,_ Agnes’ voice says in Crowley’s head. She fiercely ignores the heat pooling on her cheeks, like her blood has nothing better to do than showing her hand like this, and focuses on looking offended at the implication that she has a feud with Michael.

“Michael’s not…” Zira looks at the ceiling meditatively, refusing to be distracted by Crowley’s scowling. “… an easygoing person, but you seem to think that everything she does is specifically meant to irritate you. I’m sure you’re not the centre of her universe.”

_Huh._ “Well, that’s a sobering thought.” She takes another sip of tea, moderate this time. “Come on, say it.”

“Say what?” Zira looks at her with round, innocent eyes, and Crowley isn’t fooled for a second.

Crowley points at her with her half-empty mug. “You have advice, or at least an opinion. I know you’re aching to tell me, so do it.”

She smiles at the fond irritation in Zira’s eyes as her colleague straightens her back and folds her arms, determined to be the bigger person. “While I do, in fact, have an opinion, I don’t think you’re ready to hear it.”

Her tone is so haughty that Crowley imagines biting her, a light nip above the collarbone that Zira’s dresses and shirts always cover, just so she can be reprimanded by that voice — and _wow,_ if this isn’t both unexpected and alarmingly specific.

Fortunately, Zira doesn’t seem to read her mind this time. “No, you’ll just make a face and sulk. You’re reasonable, most of the time, and I trust you won’t jeopardise your… Well, let’s say I just trust you.”

Crowley tries to use her cup of tea as a cover, with middling results. It’s just… Those words hit a spot behind her ribs that she usually tries very hard to ignore, and she would like to keep things that way. At least until she’s alone with some vodka.

Setting aside her cup, Zira turns towards her screen and clicks her mouse to unfreeze it. “And now that I’ve embarrassed you into silence, I can go back to work.”

Somehow Crowley resists the temptation to fling her tea at her, even if she has no doubt it’s exactly what Zira deserves. “I hate you,” she says as she opens the Gabriel manuscript where she left off last night.

It’s not easy to focus on something that isn’t all the ways she could wipe Zira’s smug little smile off her lips, but she manages. Mostly. She has to take notes on her phone, and at some point she finds herself typing into her Slack conversation with Zira.

When she hits send, she glances at Zira and struggles to keep her poker face intact when those fair eyebrows slowly rise into her hairline. Zira doesn’t look at her, but she types something very quickly. A moment later, Crowley’s phone buzzes.

**—————— Today ——————**

**zira_fell** 11:45 AM  
| Please, tell me you’ve made that up.

**ginger_ohara** 11:45 AM  
| can literally show u the page now if u want

**zira_fell** 11:46 AM  
| It really isn’t necessary.

Crowley is typing an answer when Zira snorts, and she looks up from her screen to see her colleague stifle a laugh behind her hand. “What?”

Zira shakes her head and starts typing again (something work-related, evidently, because Crowley’s phone stays silent this time). “I just noticed your username.”

For the most part, the next hour or so goes by like this; Crowley tortures herself with the manuscript and texts Zira the worst parts, and that doesn’t suddenly make it a good read or anything like it, but Crowley no longer wants to pull an Oedipus and gauge her own eyes out every two sentences.

_For the most part_ , because Crowley forgot an important thing about Zira. In the short time Crowley spends in her office, at least seven people poke their heads inside to say hello, chat, report bits of office gossip or ask if she’s up for a coffee. Crowley stops feeling self-conscious after the third interruption or so, when it becomes clear that nobody finds her presence there either odd or inappropriate. Like it’s normal for Zira to shelter stray colleagues.

Zira is always lovely, of course, and courteously declines every invitation to take a break, saying she’s busy. At some point, as soon as they’re alone again, she sits back in her chair and sighs.

“Take a break, if you need one,” Crowley says, looking up from the manuscript that she’s currently propped up on a knee.

“I need to finish this email or I’ll never send it. I can’t wait for Frankfurt to come around so I can have a little peace and get some work done.”

With a quick glance at her phone screen, Crowley stretches out. “I hate to tell you this, but it’s lunch time.” She hesitates. Even if they’re both studiously ignoring them, the Weird Vibes are still firmly between them. Crowley decides to go for it nonetheless. “I can grab us something, my treat. What do you fancy? Pizza? Sushi? Shawarma? Falafel from that place you like?” What’s the worst that could happen?

As she suspected, she doesn’t have to worry about it. Zira looks at her, a study in temptation and giving in to it: she squints at Crowley and chews on her bottom lip for a whole two seconds before sighing. “The one with the good pepper sauce?”

With a grin, Crowley jumps out of the chair and grabs her bag. “Be right back.”

* * *

Crowley’s waiting for the lift and checking her phone when she hears footsteps approaching from the other side of the hall. When she looks up she sees Michael coming towards her.

She looks back down, taking a step towards the lift doors to get out of the way, but Michael stops next to her. Out of the corner of her eye, Crowley can see her little feet perfectly aligned in their spotless Cole Haan loafers.

Crowley considers taking the stairs. She really does. But the thought of Zira waiting for her (and for the falafel she’ll bring with her, let’s be honest) fills her with determination. She can and will endure a one-minute lift ride with her enemy, if it means she’ll be back quicker.

When the lift doors open, Michael goes ahead and steps in. Crowley follows suit, staying as far as she can from her colleague, without peeling her eyes from the phone except to press the 0 button. If it’s unpleasant and you ignore it, it will go away, right?

So Michael is giving her the cold shoulder. Crowley can work with that; she prefers it, even. She has plenty of experience handling that: Michael isn’t half as good at silently oozing contempt as Rose is, the amateur.

The lift doors close and the car starts its descent, only to stutter to a stop half a second later.

There’s a sharp intake of breath, and then, “What did you _do_?”

In hindsight, that shouldn’t have been the thing that made Crowley snap, but such things are not always predictable. All the times she has swallowed down an unfair remark, all the times she’s been told she’s not enough, useless, pointless: it all comes to a boiling point, and something breaks.

“Furious” is an interesting word. Crowley knows — because Anathema once went into an etymology spree on the margins of some proofs — that it comes from the Latin _furiosus_ , which means “possessed by a Fury”, a deity of death, and therefore “mad”.

When Crowley turns towards Michael, she feels exactly like an ancient chthonic entity has taken the reins. “How is this my fault?” she shouts back.

Her voice echoes against the lift’s walls, but Michael only raises her eyebrows by a quarter of a millimetre. “It must be a power outage,” she says, her tone completely flat.

Crowley is shaking. This is so _unfair._ Of all the times it could have happened, of all the people it could have happened with. “Fuck. Fuck!”

“Yelling won’t do anything,” Michael says softly.

“ _I don’t care!_ ” Crowley yells louder. Michael actually flinches this time, but she doesn’t feel any better.

Her head swims, and she wonders if her life will start flashing before her eyes soon.

Meanwhile, Michael takes her phone out of her purse and frowns at the screen. “I have no signal.”

Snapping out of her state for a moment, Crowley looks at her own device: no signal either. “Unbelievable,” she snarls.

“Well.” Michael crosses her arms and leans against the lift wall, her back still straight in an irritating way. “We’ll just have to wait. At least we have company.”

“God, I hate you.”

Her words are barely a whisper, but the lift is quiet and they carry. Crowley doesn’t regret them — on the contrary, she feels so much better.

But the way Michael blinks, the way her expression shifts just a little from indifferent to defeated, or the way she looks at her phone, even if there’s no signal… 

The silence drags on, and Crowley is starting to think they will put the H word behind them, when Michael says in a small voice: “I know.”

_I’m glad you do,_ Crowley’s about to say, but she stops. A suspiciously manicured hand descends upon the head of the Fury inside her, placating it. _What if,_ a familiar voice says, _you let this one go, my dear?_

Then Crowley hears something close to a sniffle and she squints at Michael. Her colleague is still not looking at her, and it’s probably a good thing, because Crowley’s face is turning into a mask of horror as she slowly realises Michael is on the verge of tears.

“I’m sorry,” Michael says as she rummages through her purse until she finds a packet of paper tissues, choking on the final syllable.

“Oh, please. You’re _not._ ” It’s true, Crowley is sure of it. Top ten unbelievable facts, number one: Michael St. James experiencing even the smallest modicum of regret.

Another sniffle disappears into the tissue when Michael daintily blows her nose. “What if I was?” she says a moment later, rolling the tissue into a tight ball as if it has offended her personally. “You’re a nightmare to work with, Crowley. I always try, but you never do. Do you think I’m happy to be trapped here?” It’s clear from her tone that she doesn’t mean the lift. “I work all day, every day to get everything done, and then I go home to do more work, and all I have in return is being taken for granted.”

Crowley frowns. She knows Michael is a workaholic, but she doesn’t see her bringing her work home very often. Then again, it’s not like she pays any more attention to her than she has to.

Before she can find a more tactful way of telling her that, Michael goes on: “It was me!” 

Crowley doesn’t follow, but just as she opens her mouth to ask her what in the world she means, Michael shushes her with a lifted finger while she blinks back tears. “I was the one who edited _Bottoms Up!_ ”

Crowley’s mouth falls open. She erased the proofs of _Bottoms Up!_ from her memory a long time ago.

Now that Michael has started talking, she seems unable to stop. “I live alone, I earn less than our secretary, and I know you won’t believe me, but I’m human, too. I have to pay rent and eat and dress appropriately at work. So I’ve been taking up a few projects. But I can’t give them the time or focus they need, and it shows.”

For once in her life, Crowley is at a loss for words. But she has to say _something._ “Michael, I…” She crosses her arms very tight, as if this could keep herself from falling apart. “I had no idea. You always seem so…” Uptight? Judgemental? Constipated? “Put together.”

Michael looks at her levelly. “Someone has to.”

Maybe because her voice is still raw from unspilled tears, or maybe because her confession has mollified Crowley, it doesn’t sound like one of her trademark scornful comebacks. It sounds like a joke they’re both in on. Crowley gets actual gooseflesh at the thought.

“Well, there you have it.” Michael fusses with the paper tissue and doesn’t look at her. “I’d appreciate it if you could give me some time to test the water elsewhere before going to Beez.”

Crowley understands those words individually, but it takes her a few seconds to put together what Michael means. “God, I’m not going to tell Beez.” She’s about to add, _Who do you take me for?_ But that’d be disingenuous, since she knows she would have made the same assumption if their roles were reversed. “We’ll figure something out.” 

When Michael looks at her with wide doe eyes, a voice in Crowley’s mind says, _Don’t._

As usual, she ignores it. “Is there something I can do to help?”

The — understandable, but frankly a bit offensive — surprise in Michael’s eyes is replaced by a humourless glint as she scoffs. “You could start by making this elevator work again so I can have lunch and go back to work. Or go to Frankfurt in my place.” Michael’s sigh is long and deep. “I hate Frankfurt. Oh, my _God,_ it feels so good to say it out loud. I hate Frankfurt!” she cries, and her voice reverberates as Crowley’s did five minutes ago.

“You’re kidding me!” Crowley replies, alarmed, at the same volume.

“I am _not_! I only pretend because it makes me look good. But what’s the point of doing everything right?” She points at Crowley with her chin. “I have to watch you come in late, dressed like that, every day. You don’t give a single fuck, and Beez loves you. Can you begin to imagine how frustrating that is?”

Crowley’s brain still hasn’t processed the fact that Michael apparently hates the Frankfurt Book Fair, let alone her using the word “fuck” with such liberality and the implication that Beez doesn’t hate Crowley’s guts, a certainty that has been questioned a lot lately. “ _What_ ,” is all she manages to say.

Michael sighs again and closes her eyes. She looks exhausted, but also somehow lighter. “Don’t pretend you don’t know.” 

Crowley has no excuse for what she says next. The sensible part of her brain has always suffered from periodical malfunctions. It’s a pattern, really: she should have it checked. “So. Frankfurt.” Michael looks at her, waiting for her to go on, but the words are stuck on Crowley’s palate. She’s started digging her grave, though, might as well go all the way. She attempts a casual shrug, but she just looks like she’s fighting a bee. “Do you think… someone could go in your place?” She wants to take those words back as soon as they’ve left her mouth.

But in that very moment the lift moves.

“Oh, thank fuck,” Michael exhales, and Crowley is too busy looking at her with eyes wide as saucers to notice that they’re going _up_ instead of _down._

When the doors open, back on the ninth floor, they’re greeted by Newton’s dismayed face. “I’m so, so sorry,” he says.

Neither of them asks him what he’s apologising for.

“Are you serious?” Michael asks, and Crowley shrugs: she doesn’t know, she _supposes._ “Cancel your lunch plans,” Michael adds, already taking her leather-bound planner out of her purse. “We’re discussing this between us _at length_ before we bring it to Beez.”

* * *

Both at lunch and later, in Beez’s office, Michael is so serene and collected that Crowley starts to think she has fallen victim to one of the classic blunders. She expects Michael to break character any time, cackling and saying something like “Gotcha!” with the gusto of a _Scooby-Doo_ villain.

But it doesn’t happen. Her colleague’s goodwill seems genuine, as is her intention of guiding her through the most important points. Crowley doesn’t know what to do with that, so she listens and takes notes and tries not to think about it.

Contrary to what she believed would happen, Beez accepts the switch without any resistance. And, far from being upset at the cancellation of their lunch plans, Zira is nothing but encouraging. _You will make the best of it, I know it,_ she writes in their Slack chat when Crowley apologises for the missing falafel. With a sick feeling in her stomach, she types out and cancels seven different replies before closing the app. There are so many things she could and should say, but she doesn’t.

“Congratulations.” The envelope Tracy hands her the next day makes Crowley the possessor of two plane tickets to and from Germany, and of another generous helping of anxiety and regret.

Leaning forward among all the doilies and ceramic knick-knacks, Tracy puts her chin on her hands. “Don’t make that face, sweetheart. You’ll do wonderfully. This is such a great opportunity for you.”

People seem fond of reminding her of that. 

_(“I didn’t think Beez would be on board,” Michael admits with her usual abrasive frankness, sitting at her desk after the discussion with their boss. “But you saw her. She was enthusiasm incarnate.”_

_Crowley is about to point out that Beez just shrugged while looking faintly disgusted_ — _but thinking about it, that definitely counted as enthusiasm.)_

Crowley takes the letter and sighs. “I feel like I’ve shot myself in the foot, but thank you.” 

Cerberus’ secretary waves a bejewelled hand. “Nonsense. You will enjoy yourself.” 

The possibility seems so remote that Crowley laughs, a bit hysterically, and Tracy sniffs. 

“Sorry, Trace. I would never dream of questioning your wisdom.” Tracy nods, appeased, and Crowley takes a deep breath. A faint smell of incense and peppermint clings to the inside of her nostrils, but it’s not unpleasant; it’s familiar and reassuring, just like Tracy. Crowley sighs. Since she’s here, she might as well. “I’m sorry I’m failing at mindfulness.”

It’s a shameful confession delivered in a sheepish tone, but Tracy just laughs. Crowley’s not sure if she should be relieved or offended. “Sweet pea, there's no such thing as good or bad in these matters.” She leans forward again and lowers her voice. “I’ll tell you a secret. _You’re supposed to be bad._ ” Crowley’s expression must speak volumes, and Tracy shakes her head with a fond smile. “The whole point is to learn to pick yourself up, again and again, with patience and love. And you can’t do that if you never fall.”

It’s the most absurd and counterintuitive thing Crowley has ever heard, and she wonders whether Tracy will write that down for her if she asks nicely enough. “So what you’re saying is that… failing is good?”

Tracy reaches out to pat her hand. “Failing is human. So is forgiving.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're getting there, _I promise_.


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm aliiiive! Thanks to all of you who are still following this, you are patient and beautiful souls.
> 
> I haven't acknowledged my betas seekwill and trailingoff here in a while, but if what you're reading makes sense it's largely because of them. (And, if not, it's not their fault.)
> 
> Additional thanks to my kind friend singasongrightnow/Phantomstardemon, who patiently and enthusiastically answered my questions about German! Any remaining mistakes are my own, please feel free to send me a DM on Tumblr if something makes you go ???

_Failing is human. So is forgiving._

Of the many different things that should keep Crowley awake at night, a couple of throwaway words about mindfulness is… almost humiliating.

And yet.

She tosses around — quietly, so she won’t wake Warlock, whose soft snoring shouldn’t be this endearing. _Of course_ she’s familiar with the concept of failure as a fundamentally human thing. Of course she knows that things can go wrong and sometimes you can’t do anything about it.

It’s still unfair.

* * *

_hi angel. cant sleep. do you ever think abt how you cant just run away and leave everythign an deveryone behind and just_ _  
_ _have a fresh start. somewhere with a beach maybe_ _  
_ _because i think thats rude  
_ _(1.43 AM)_ _  
_ _[unsent]_

* * *

She sleeps so poorly that it’s a wonder she doesn’t blunder her way into a diplomatic incident during her first day of the fair. It takes a while for her foggy brain to wrap itself around the sprawling expanse of halls, stands, storeys and corridors, but then the caffeine kicks in and she’s almost back to her usual smart, resourceful self. Plus, everyone here speaks English fluently, so asking for directions is easy, after she’s swallowed her pride.

The talking part goes… okay. She’s not supposed to make decisions on her own, but there are a handful of novels that sound promising and probably a couple among them that Beez would actually consider. And she thinks she did a passable job of selling their own titles as if she doesn’t think that more than half of them are garbage.

It’s dark when she steps out on the cold but brightly lit Friedrich-Ebert-Anlage. She has her sunglasses on nonetheless, in the faint hope that nobody recognises her and stops for “a quick chat” that’ll turn into a full pitch. Again. 

She has so far resisted the temptation of tearing her Cerberus badge to shreds, stuffing it in the darkest depths of her bag and fucking off to a museum or botanical garden, pretending to be a tourist. Maybe the badge will find the black hole that has already swallowed a chapstick and two pen drives, disappearing forever, and she’ll be free.

Her hotel is a half-hour ride from here, near the airport, which she quite appreciated yesterday night, when her flight landed with a two-hour delay, and will probably appreciate again when she has to wake up at an ungodly hour to fly back home. Right now, though, it means waiting in the freezing cold at the bus stop for who knows how long.

She has every intention to go into the room she shares with Warlock, try to have a shower without falling asleep in it, and go straight to bed. Dinner may or may not happen in between those things.

_(“’s not that I don’t believe in therapy,” she says around a mouthful of pasta salad, cross-legged and hunched in her office chair, flicking a strand of hair away from the sauce. “It’s just that I don’t feel comfortable…” She gestures. “Airing my grievances to strangers.”_

_Zira’s eyebrows arch for a moment. “I don’t see you having any problem doing that with me.”_

_It’s only the second lunch break they spend together in the empty editors office, but Crowley can already read between the lines of Zira’s scold-y tone. “You’re not doing a good job of being a stranger. Should work on it. And I don't feel uncomfortable complaining about flap copies to you over lunch.”_

_“Which is wonderful, given your complicated relationship with food,” Zira replies without missing a beat._

_Crowley gasps so hard that her chair glides back a few centimetres. The plastic box sitting in her lap tilts dangerously. “I don't have a complicated anything! Why would you say that?”_

_“I'm just very observant,” Zira says, unruffled, with a slight shrug that means,_ not that I need to be.

_Shifting back to her original position, Crowley thinks she should let it drop, but the chances that Zira would smile at her reply are too high. She pretends to think about it before saying, “I mean, it_ is _a waste of time.”_

_Her risk pays off, and doubly so, because Zira actually laughs while hitting her with the handle of her fork. “Then it’ll be my job to keep you fed.”)_

Crowley’s stomach grumbles and she scowls at her midsection.

Her day has been so long that when she checks her phone she’s stunned to see it’s the same date as this morning. Maybe a year has passed and she didn’t notice, maybe the Celestial booth leads to one of those fairy lands where time flows differently and travellers come out to discover that their loved ones are all dead of old age. Crowley has always been more fascinated than scared by those stories.

But she _is_ the type who would jump into a fairy ring and question the wisdom of her actions later.

She has spoken with _so_ many people today. Or, to be fair, so many people have spoken with her. She knew by name most of the editors and foreign rights managers in her schedule, which Michael had annotated with tidbits that ranged from practical to catty — often both. And, because their industry feeds on gossip, a few people came by just to say hello to Cerberus’ new sacrificial lamb. The only person Crowley was truly happy to see was Adam Young, whom she coerced into an extended coffee break. He was “meeting people”, as he put it.

“’S called networking now, I think,” said Crowley, gratefully letting the caffeine run through her veins.

“Oh, I’m doing that, then. No nets left unworked,” Adam added with a wink.

The memory envelops her in its cosy cocoon, and she almost misses her stop. She makes her way out of the bus and into the hotel lobby, all mirrors and concrete and high ceilings, nice and impersonal. The personnel speak perfect English when necessary, but otherwise operate on an efficient system of nods and glances that Crowley fully endorses.

There’s nobody else in the lift, so she leans against one of its walls, pressing the button for the eighth floor and closing her eyes so they can rest a little. Her ears are ringing in the sudden silence, and she jumps when the elevator _ding_ startles her, almost waking her up.

With her keycard already in hand, she thinks that maybe a short nap might be in order before a shower. Better to set an alarm, though, because right now she feels like she could sleep through the rest of her stay.

She doesn’t realise there’s someone else in the carpeted corridor until she’s taken a few steps out of the lift, and when she realises what she’s looking at she backtracks as fast as she can, stepping into the lift before the doors can close and pushing the ground floor button out of sheer instinct.

She’s hot in the face as she blinks, trying to make sense of Warlock pressed against the door of their room, hands in Adam’s hair, the two of them busy sucking each other’s faces.

It’s fine, this is fine. Does Zira know about this? Crowley reaches inside her bag for her phone so she can ask her, but stops halfway.

So this is a fun thing that’s been going on all day. Crowley’s constant internal monologue has turned into a one-sided dialogue with an imaginary Zira, cracking jokes that she knows would make Zira roll her eyes and then laugh, typing texts that she doesn’t send.

Exhaustion feels a bit like drunkenness. If she talks to Zira, everything will spill out of her, whether she wants it or not.

And Crowley _wants_ , but how is she going to address the thing? _Hiya, angel, I’m tired out of my mind. Also hopelessly in love with you. Thoughts? And did you know that our two_ Wunderkinder _are a thing?_

Yeah, no.

Feeling suddenly restless, she steps out of the elevator towards the open bar area, where a couple of high-end vending machines loom beside a counter with luxurious kettles and coffee makers. The area is mercifully empty, possibly because all the other guests are busy “networking” over cocktails at the Hessischer or the Frankfurter Hof. Crowley would rather die a horrible death.

She fills one of the fancy kettles and browses the complimentary selection of teas and instant coffees before landing on the Darjeeling, the one Zira likes to brew when she’s “feeling adventurous”. Crowley shoves the thought in the back of her mind.

She’s sitting at the large, round table, on a chair that has no business being so comfortable, just inhaling the steam that rises from her cup, when someone walks to the vending machines. 

Small talk is out of the question, so Crowley does her best to ignore whoever this is, hoping they’ll scram. But her luck has evidently run out tonight.

“May I join you?” a polite voice asks in English. A woman, with a soft American accent.

Blinking so slowly that she has the time to count to five, Crowley lifts her gaze wearily to the intruder, and… “God!” she gasps. “I mean, God, sure, have a seat.”

The look that Frances Goddard, CEO of Celestial Publishing, gives Crowley as she sits down is completely unreadable. Her eyes are bright and inquisitive, and not that different from Zira’s in colour, but if her daughter’s are a mountain pond in summer, God’s remind Crowley of something that can sink ships.

Still, Crowley squirms, feeling like she’s in the principal’s office. Right, that’s just perfect: trust her to meet the most important person in the whole world — well, the whole company, at least — while looking and feeling like something the cat dragged out of the bin.

God, on the other hand, is perfect as always, in a smart cream suit, with short grey hair. She has the sort of natural grace that looks low effort but isn’t. As soon as she sits down, though, she closes her eyes for a second and lets out a small sigh.

And maybe it’s the way her shoulders slump a little under her tailored jacket, or maybe Crowley is noticing just now the little lines fanning from the outer corners of her eyes. Whatever the reason, she realises with a jolt that she’s not in God’s company, right now.

She’s in Frances’.

While Crowley blinks, adjusting to this shift, Frances slides something towards her on the table. “Do you want one? The vending machine just gave me two.”

Crowley looks at the wrapped Mars bars and says the first thing that comes into her mind. “Sure.” Just like that, she’s forfeited her chance to scuttle away with her tea. Now she has to stay.

It’s fine.

Unwrapping her own Mars bar, Frances looks at her levelly. “I wasn’t expecting to see you here. Usually it’s St.James who does the honours.”

“I’m the second best,” Crowley says. Is she really making small talk with God — _Frances_ — over snacks in Germany? The first two buttons of her black cardigan are open, but Crowley still feels like it’s choking her. She can’t open a third button, though. The situation is critical enough without her accidentally flashing the CEO.

“Are you.” 

It’s not a question, so Crowley doesn’t answer. She fidgets with the bar’s wrapper, but she doesn’t open it.

Instead she watches as Frances takes a bite of the too-sweet caramel and chocolate bar and sighs like a weight has been pulled off her chest. She’s not relaxed, Crowley doesn’t think her body knows how to do that, but… yeah.

“So.”

Crowley perks up.

Frances looks at her with a slight squint. Crowley can’t tell if she’s reading her like an open book or if she’s just short-sighted. “Are you satisfied? I remember you found the tenth floor’s policies a bit… lacking, back then.” 

Such a delicate way of saying “moronic”. Crowley opens her mouth and closes it again. “You remember our conversation.”

A corner of Frances’ mouth quirks slightly, deepening the lines on her face. “I never forget anything. Can’t afford to, right?”

Crowley blinks rapidly. “Erm. No, I guess not.” She stops, hesitates. She could say that everything’s peachy, that her career’s going exactly in the direction she wanted. That she can see herself staying at Cerberus, maybe filling Michael’s shoes when her colleague leaves for greener pastures.

It hadn’t occurred to her until now that it would all be a lie.

“Well. It’s…” She tries to swallow, but her throat is parched and her tea is still too fucking hot. “It’s… a bit frustrating, sometimes.”

Frances doesn’t say anything. She just sits there, waiting for Crowley to elaborate. 

And Crowley does, damn her. “I feel stuck. Like I could do so much better and so much more, but things just _aren’t done_ the way I want to do them, and I’m expected to shut up and keep my head down. And I’m afraid it will be like that forever.” Shivering, she runs her hands over her arms. Her skin feels prickly under the cardigan. Is she allergic to honesty?

“You want more responsibility.” When Crowley snorts, Frances arches an eyebrow. “Is it really so preposterous? You’re ambitious. There’s nothing wrong with that.” Frances taps a finger on the table. Her nails are short and unpainted, but clearly manicured. So much effort to look… normal. Human. “Perhaps Celestial wasn’t the place for you then, but it can be now. You could be in a place where you’re the one who decides how things are done.”

It takes a while for the meaning of her words to hit Crowley properly, and when it does her head spins. “What— wait, are you… Are you sending me back to Celestial?”

“I’m not in the habit of sending people anywhere, no matter what they mutter in the corridors,” Frances clarifies, a grey eyebrow arching meaningfully. “I didn’t send you down to Cerberus like some kind of divine punishment. You asked me to go there.” Crowley frowns, but Frances doesn’t give her the time to reply. “I’m not _ordering_ you back upstairs. I’m just telling you how things are. Think about it.”

Crowley stares at Frances as she finishes the rest of her chocolate bar in one bite and stretches.

“I need to go,” she says, without an ounce of self-consciousness. “Now that I’ve properly ruined my appetite, there’s a business dinner waiting for me at the Frankfurter.”

And she walks away, leaving Crowley blinking in the middle of a crater.

* * *

_so_ _  
_ _your mum just offered me a job_ _  
_ _at least i think thats what happened_ _  
_ _and here i thought hte weirdest thing i was gonna see tonigth was the blossoming of a young romabce in a badly lit hotel corridor (9.49 pm)_ _  
_ _[unsent]_

* * *

Her second morning at the fair drags so slow that empires have surely risen and fallen, and Crowley feels approximately six thousand years older.

The good news is that she slept a normal amount of hours last night, due to exhaustion and to the fact that, for reasons she doesn’t want to think too much about, she had the room to herself. And oh, yeah, the fact that apparently there’s a red carpet to Celestial waiting to be stepped on by her feet.

As if things weren’t complicated enough.

Despite Michael’s instructions to take advantage of lunch and dinner to meet people, and Beez’s voice (always playing in the background of her mind) telling her to _get to work, I’ve paid a fortune to send you there_ , Crowley’s plan is to eat a sad sandwich in the most secluded spot she can find, maybe just out a back door, sitting on the concrete. She thinks she’s found a suitable place, a loading zone with very little traffic, where she sneaked in a cigarette break yesterday.

The only company she could suffer has his own plans for the day. Warlock’s schedule is busier than hers, and unlike Crowley, he _is_ something of a social butterfly; his quirky sense of humour is just this side of endearing and he finds people _tolerable,_ fancy that.

She’s about to step out of her booth when a woman with a trade visitor badge approaches her. “Hi, sorry to bother, but is there an Antonia Crowley here?”

The stranger speaks with a soft accent that Crowley now can place as German. Her dark skin and hair are in stark contrast with her lily-white cabled sweater, and she’s walking on high heels made a bit more casual by her faded jeans. Her stunning looks are softened by her approachable demeanour. “You’ve found her,” Crowley says, when she’s able to speak again.

The stranger’s smile almost blinds her. “ _Da schau her!_ You’re just like I imagined you, and at the same time not at all.” The woman extends a hand. “I’m Eva Gärtner.”

It takes a moment for Crowley to match the name with its spelling, but when she does, she gasps. “No way!”

It’s not surprising to see her here, because Eva has been working in publishing at least as long as Crowley, and it’s only natural that a busy and sought-after literary agent like her would be at Frankfurt. She’s also in the top ten of Crowley’s _People Not All That Annoying to Work With_ list.

Crowley shakes Eva’s hand with as much warmth as she can manage. “I can’t believe you exist as a person. I seriously thought you were just a good brain with an email account.”

“And you’re not three sarcastic raccoons in a trenchcoat. The world is full of surprises.” Eva’s smile doesn’t lose a single watt as she lets go of Crowley’s hand and holds on to the strap of her heavy-looking carrier bag. “Listen, I know we’re not in each other’s schedules, but do you want to have lunch together? Not here,” she adds, noticing Crowley’s expression, and she winks. “I know a place. Trust a local.”

* * *

Eva’s place turns out to be in the basement of a nondescript building, five minutes from the Messe on foot. Crowley’s trust in her is put to the test for a second, but the small pub is filled with locals clearly enjoying their meal and, most importantly, a heavenly smell.

A _Rippchen_ and a couple of beers later, Crowley feels a bit more at peace with the universe. She thinks Zira would enjoy the Germans’ daring and generous culinary tendencies. As soon as she’s alone, she’s going to ask her about it in a text she won’t send.

Talking with Eva is very easy. They know each other through work, so the topics veer naturally towards industry stuff.

They’re halfway through a shared slice of Kranz when a lull in the conversation finally prompts Crowley to address the question she’s been toying with for the last half-hour. “Do you mind if I pick your brain on something?”

Wiping a smudge of buttercream from the corner of her mouth with her napkin, Eva smiles. “Sure.”

Encouraged, Crowley puts down her fork and brings her fingertips together. “Say you had a good idea in your hands. Hypothetically. Not a manuscript yet, just a potential story. And you really believed in it.”

“Does this hypothetical story belong to a hypothetical client?”

“Er… no. Just a… a hypothetical friend.”

Crowley looks at Eva chewing on the cake as she thinks, and she can’t help but imagine Zira in her place. God, she’s staring, isn’t she? She quickly looks away.

If Eva noticed or is bothered by it, she doesn’t let it show. Instead she puts her fork down and threads her fingers together on the table, mirroring Crowley. “It seems to me that the situation is still too… _hypothetical._ You need to decide if it’s professional or personal.”

“I would like it to become professional.” Crowley crosses her arms with a scowl. “Theoretically. But I don’t know anybody who wants the story or that I would trust with it.”

Before continuing, Eva looks at the cake and then at Crowley, who motions for her to go ahead. Scooping up a forkful of cake, Eva says, “Then you have to expand your reach,” before putting it into her mouth.

Crowley blinks. She opens her mouth, then closes it. Despite the confidence in the agent’s reply, the problem is far from solved. “I… Yes. But, I mean, I can’t go to a competitor and just… pitch the idea to them. It’s, uh.” She waves indistinctly. “That… thing, unfair competition or some such.”

Eva gives her a flat but not unkind look. “Then give the idea to someone who _can_ do something about it.”

Those words hit so deeply that Crowley stops fidgeting.

Her first thought is that she should have thought of this herself. But maybe there’s a reason why she hasn’t. Anathema put her trust in Crowley specifically: how can she look her friend in the eyes and tell her that she’s washing her hands of Agnes’ story?

But what if there was someone they _could_ trust in a big, old, reliable publishing house?

Crowley crosses her arms again, slumping on her chair. “Let’s say I could be in a position to do something about it.”

“Simple, then. If it’s worth it, you should go for it.” Eva smiles. It _does_ look simple. “I’m rooting for you, _Liebe._ This is clearly dear to your heart, and I’m sure you’ll find a way to make it happen.”

Crowley sighs. “Yeah. Well. Let me treat you to lunch?”

“Don’t even _think_ about it.”

* * *

_so_ _  
_ _the universe thinks i should accept yr mums offer APPARENTLY_ _  
_ _so thats what ill do……..? mayyybe?_ _  
_ _dunno_ _  
_ _wish i could talk to you about it_ _  
_ _and i could if only i pressed send on this couldnt i_ _  
_ _why is this soshdsd_ _  
_ _so hard_ _  
_ _(3.17 am)_ _  
_ _[unsent]_

* * *

“I feel terrible.” Warlock leans all the way down on his seat until he’s almost horizontal, and rests his head on Crowley’s shoulder.

She looks from her phone to his head, sniffing it cautiously, and decides against shooing him away. “Are you coming straight from the farewell party?”

“Excuse me, first of all it's _parties,_ plural. Second, you should have come too.”

Crowley snorts. She would rather walk on hot coals. “I’m too old for that.”

“There were a lot of old people. God was there, too.”

Crowley pokes him in the side, smiling when he squeaks. “You shouldn’t agree with me when I call myself old.”

“You’re _supposed_ to go to dinners and parties and cocktail hours and ‘be social’. That’s the best part,” Warlock goes on, ignoring her.

“I think you were social enough for the both of us.” Crowley turns off her phone’s screen. “Isn't your dance card full?”

Warlock squirms against her, trying to find a comfortable spot, but Crowley's all bones. “’M sorry, I don’t speak Old People.”

She rolls her eyes. _Adieu,_ subtlety. “I saw you with Adam the other night.”

Warlock stays silent for so long that Crowley thinks he’s fallen asleep. Then he scratches his nose. “Are you going to lecture me about that?”

His tone is dry, but his voice cracks just at the end. Ah, damn Crowley and her soft heart. “I’m not going to do anything except smack you if you call me old again. I want to make sure you know what you’re doing, is all. So you don’t get hurt.”

He squirms again. “Aww, you care about me.”

She resists the urge to stand up and walk away. She’s the adult in this conversation. Well, technically they _both_ are, but still. “I’ve given you too many Christmas and birthday presents, I won’t let the investment go to waste. So? Have you thought about it?”

“Why?”

Crowley blinks. “Excuse me?”

Twisting his neck, Warlock looks at her with a single bleary eye through the curtain of black hair. “You don’t have to overthink everything, Crowley. Sometimes you want to do something and you do it.” He rests his head on her shoulder again, or he tries. “Or someone. Same difference.”

Her instinctual comeback dies on her lips. _Well._ Who is she to judge? “Provided it’s safe and consensual, kid,” she says, immediately feeling a million years old despite her earlier protestations. 

Warlock scoffs, but generously leaves her a bit of dignity and doesn’t reply. 

This… affection that Crowley feels for the kid can’t do any good to either of them. Once again, they’re colleagues before being friends. She remembers the blood-curdling stories he told her about his family during their first office Christmas party together, and she’s sure that’s only the tip of the iceberg. But it’s not like she can _adopt_ him, or force him to accept whatever help she can offer. All she can do is… stand around, be ready to catch him if and when he falls. And give him the kind of advice an elderly lady could offer, apparently. “Adam isn’t in London most of the time. Have you talked about the long distance stuff?”

Warlock’s hands, which had been toying with the hem of his sweatshirt, still. _He's going to tell me to mind my own business,_ Crowley thinks suddenly, _and I deserve it._ “Crowley, we’re not together," he says instead. "It was just… a thing. I have no regrets, and I don't think he has either, and I _definitely_ hope it’ll happen again, but it’s just… whatever.”

_That's it, then._ Crowley would put her imaginary confetti away and shelve the whole thing... if there wasn’t too much indifference in Warlock’s tone for it to be entirely casual. _Do you know if he feels the same way?_ she would ask, but she’s not that much of a hypocrite. Instead, she sighs. “I see. As long as you're careful…”

“Oh, my _God,_ are you really going to give me the speech?”

This time, Crowley taps him on the head with her phone (lightly, to preserve both of those precious things). “You hellion. I meant with… your heart, or whatever.” She hesitates. “It’s never as unbreakable as you think it is.”

“Yes, grandma,” he says, pretending to nurse the spot on his head where she hit him.

_Okay, that’s enough agony aunt for today._ “Do you know where's Dagon? I don’t want to find out we’ve been waiting in the wrong place for two hours.”

“I don’t, and my phone is dead. Call her.”

The very idea is appalling. Crowley hands him her phone. “Be my guest.”

* * *

When Crowley finally steps on the tarmac in the early afternoon, she feels like she just got out of a blender. Not a fan of planes, that’s decided.

She takes a taxi home — she would _never_ put the Bentley through the trouble of waiting for her two whole nights, all alone in a dangerous airport car park, in the wild — and she’s so exhausted that her ears are ringing. Despite the airport gunk in her hair and on her clothes, she takes off her shoes and flops down on the couch.

She remembers she still has her phone on airplane mode.

When she turns it on, it starts vibrating with so many texts and emails and voicemails that she almost drops it. 

“I’m popular, now,” she mutters. The dieffenbachia near the couch doesn’t weigh in.

And then she doesn’t say anything for a long while. She’s not sure she’ll speak again. Hell, she doesn’t know when she’ll start _breathing_ again, which could put a damper on everything else.

Because the first text she reads is from Zira.

_I don’t think you meant to send me those texts, but for some reason you have. (6.18 am)_

Subtracting those hours is harder than calculating the volume of a cone, but she concludes that Zira must have sent this text that morning, while Crowley was on the plane. It wouldn’t take a genius to reach the next conclusion.

“Warlock!” She yells it like she’s casting a curse. He had her phone for _five seconds._

There are a few more texts under that one, but before she has a heart attack Crowley needs to see exactly what Zira has read, so she scrolls up.

And here they are, the texts she typed at Frankfurt airport this morning, half drunk with exhaustion.

_so this is going to be extremely stream of consciousnessy but its not liek youll actually read it so i can do wht i want_ _  
_ _you said think about it and ive thought about it_ _  
_ _im probably the worst person you could choose to be your trophy wife or whatever_ _  
_ _not exactly suited for high society me_  
_and i manifestly hate yuor brother and your mum is a bit creepy_ _  
(5.34 am)_

“Oh, no.” Crowley feels her soul physically leave her body with those whispered words. She gave her phone to Warlock before she could type the rest, and it looks like…

She is going to kill Warlock.

But first she has to call Zira. Call her and tell her that this is not what it seems, that this was only half of it.

That she hasn't had the time to write _It doesn’t matter, I choose you, you, despite everything._

Nothing is more important to Crowley right now than making sure Zira knows this… until she glimpses the preview of an email from Beez, and she jumps off the couch.

“Oh, fuck me. _Fuck,”_ she adds, with more feeling, as the world collapses around her for the second time in five minutes.

Her phone keeps vibrating in a syncopated rhythm and she tosses it on the couch, away from her. “Give me a _fucking_ moment,” she hisses at it, running her hands through her disgusting airplane hair.

The screen displayed an email with the subject _guess whos back from the dead,_ and no content. Attached to it, a simple picture of the first page of a manuscript — a clear, sans-serif font, properly spaced lines — with the title clearly visible:

_A SECOND CHANCE_

_by Duke Ligur_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Me at the end of my last multichapter: enough with plot, next time they're going to kiss and go places and that's that.
> 
> Aaaanyway, I hope this was fun. Take care of yourselves, drink water, be kind to each other.


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did Duke Ligur come back from the dead? Has Crowley made a mess of things with Zira? Read on to find out!
> 
> (Sorry for the cheesiness, I'm very busy and very tired and my brain is soup.)

When the cold, grey water first laps at her bare feet, Crowley takes a deep breath in. “Hi,” she says, exhaling.

The Channel is as freezing as it always is at the end of October, and her exposed shins are covered in goosebumps where they’re splashed by sea water and hit by the relentless wind. But she’s wearing a borrowed grey cardigan over her rolled-up jeans, the too-long sleeves covering her hands halfway up her palms, and her fingertips are warmed by the cup of tea she’s holding, which is scorchingly hot. She takes one hand away for a second so she can push her sunglasses over her head, simultaneously keeping her windswept hair from going into her mouth and allowing her eyes to drink in the seascape unfiltered.

The expanse of rolling cumulonimbi hiding the mid-morning sun refracts and propagates a blinding brightness. The water gets darker and darker the farther Crowley looks, and the wind blows back the foam on the crests of tall, angry waves. In the distance, the cliffs are white, mist-shrouded ghosts.

Crowley is completely insignificant. She wraps the feeling around her, taking comfort in it. When the numbness in her toes shifts from uncomfortable to painful, she knows it’s time to go back.

Besides, she can’t avoid the talk anymore. 

She’ll tackle the matter head on, like an adult. Absolutely no problem. It’s easy to lie to herself and think that the cold is the only reason she’s shaking.

The cottage is a short distance from the seafront, outside the range of most storm surges but with the waves in sight of its large glass window. Crowley steps carefully on the pebbles towards the point where she left her shoes — brown, battered slip-ons, as comfortable as they are ugly — just as her feet start regaining a bit of their sensitivity. She sits where the shingle beach gives way to a short strip of sand, packed earth and shrubs, alternately shivering and drinking tea until her feet are dry enough for socks. As her blue toes are enveloped by the soft wool, her lower extremities ache and throb as they suddenly warm up.

She’s alive, her body doing its best even when her mind feels like an enemy,  _ and  _ she’s fragile and mortal and none of the things she agonises over will have any importance in a hundred years. These contradictory reminders are comforting, when everything else is a mess.

The glass door with its weathered wooden border slides open and then closed with a whisper. A soft grey light bathes the cottage’s main room. The fireplace is off, and Ligur’s manuscript lies on the small, sturdy table, ignored.

“I’m back.” She takes off her shoes and steps across the plush carpet in her stockinged feet towards the kitchenette, where she rinses the cup in the sink. The metal surface is tarnished, by use or on purpose she’s not sure.

There’s no answer, so she dries her hands on a tea towel, picks up her shoes and goes to the front door. She slips them on and walks out.

The moss-covered rock garden welcomes her in all its autumn glory. It’s not big, being the centrepiece of the ring-shaped gravel path at the end of the cul-de-sac that leads to the cottage from the main road. Among the blue fescue bushes she can make out the darker hues of the creeping phlox and the red tips of the houselicks. The shed is just beside it, on the other side of the path, and she hears the predictable racket coming from there as soon as she steps outside.

“Shed” is perhaps the wrong word for her dad’s workshop, since it’s big enough to fit all of his tools and the two or three projects he usually works on at the same time. These days, the main attraction is a boat, and technically he’s not working on it as  _ under  _ it, since the thing is standing upside down on two sturdy wooden trestles. All Crowley can see of him are his legs, clad in a pair of old, ripped (and not as a fashion statement) jeans and his work shoes. The rhythmic noise she heard turns out to be him hammering on the inside of the boat.

The hammering pauses as his voice comes from under the boat before she can talk. “You know what this is?”

Carefully stepping around discarded tools, mounds of sawdust and who knows what else, Crowley goes to lean against the workbench. She spares a look at the crates in a far corner of the shed. There’s more of them than the last time she was here; her dad is either stocking up or the sales aren’t going very well. She doesn’t want to know yet. “Tell me.”

The hammering stops for a moment and his face peeks out from under the boat’s side. “It’s a currach.”

“Bless you, old man.”

“Don’t be rude. The lady’s older than me and you combined. Finn McElroy’s great-grandfather brought it here when he left Connacht.” He slinks out from under the boat, leaving the hammer on the workbench behind his daughter. “He begged me to take her out of his hands. Called her ‘useless clutter’. Can you believe it?” He clicks his tongue, looking as if he was the offended party instead of the boat, who so far seems unperturbed.

Biting her lips to hide a smile, Crowley crosses her arms. “What are you going to do with it?”

“That’s exactly what Finn said. ‘What are you gonna do with it, Crowley?’ What am I ever going to do with a boat? Make her seaworthy, for a start.” He wipes the sweat from his brow with a handkerchief that has seen better days. There’s no heating in the shed, but it’s not needed. Crowley knows: she used to help around when her dad still lived in London and the workshop was in a mouldy basement. She looks up at the shed’s wooden beams, breathing in the sawdust and the salt. Definitely an improvement.

Since they started seeing each other maybe twice a year, instead of every day, the signs left by time on her father are evident. It’s not just his beard — turned from salt and pepper to full grey — or the receding hairline or the weight he’s putting on. He took his time standing up from his crouch, and he leans against the bench beside her with a huff. The thought that he’s well into his sixties makes her shudder, even if his forget-me-not eyes still have the amused spark that always makes her feel like she’s in on a joke. And apparently he keeps working endlessly on too many projects at a time.

He’s still Dad.

She doesn’t look at him. He doesn’t ask. It’s weird, how different his silence is from her mother’s. The absence of words isn’t a judgement against her, but a language she speaks and understands.

He hasn’t asked why she showed up yesterday and why she isn’t at work now, even though it’s Monday.  _ Did something happen?  _ his expression said, and he didn’t insist when she shrugged, just telling her to go turn on the heating in the spare room while he made lunch for two.

_ Get it over with,  _ she chides herself.

And finally the words tumble out of her. “So, I left my job.”

* * *

_ Two days earlier _

No, Duke Ligur didn’t come back from the dead. Not that Crowley would be surprised, by this point.

At half past five on a Saturday, there’s nobody on the ninth floor but them. Crowley didn’t know that Beez came to the office on Saturdays, and she has the impression that any question would be met with a glare.

“The manuscript arrived this morning.” Beez is smoking her millionth cigarette today. Well, Crowley wasn’t around to see when she started, but it doesn’t take a genius. Her boss looks like someone has used her to clean the office windows, except they’re still as grimy as Crowley remembers them. “Last night, more likely. All I know is that I found it on my desk this morning, with a bow on top. Not literally,” she spits out, when Crowley arches an eyebrow. “Will you stay still for a damn moment?”

Crowley ignores her. She needs to move when she’s thinking. “No envelope, no address?”

“Oh, I didn’t think to check if the anonymous ghostwriter left a return address.”

Crowley doesn’t even register the sarcasm dripping from her words. “So you’re  _ sure  _ it’s not an original.”

With a long sigh, Beez taps the cigarette against the rim of a mug on her desk. The hidden ashtray she keeps somewhere — in the top drawer, according to the running office bet — must be full. “If that man had been working on a manuscript when he died, I would have known. And why hide it from us?”

“Have you heard from Hastur?”

“First person I called. He thought it was a prank. Hung up on me.”

Crowley can’t blame him. If she was informed that her boss had written a book from beyond the grave, she would have hung up too.

She looks at the manuscript, sitting slim and innocent on the desk, loose pages held together by a rubber band. “Have you read it?”

Beez glares at it with pure, uncut hatred. On the smooth surface of the title page, Ligur’s name mocks the both of them. “It’s just a prologue and a chapter. Following our guidelines and all.”

“You think there’s more where this came from?”

Beez is the only person Crowley knows who can make a shrug look disgusted. A true role model, in that regard. “Someone’s trying to trick us into publishing a fake Ligur novel, so they must have the whole thing.”

This is absurd. Crowley shakes her head. Something’s escaping her, something obvious, she  _ knows.  _ “What are they waiting for?”

Having smoked the cigarette all the way down to the filter, Beez tosses the butt into the mug. She’s already lighting another before the wisp of smoke lifting from the makeshift ashtray is extinguished. “I don’t know. Writers are weird. Maybe they’re trying to gauge if we’re interested before committing. Maybe they’ve sent it to everyone. Maybe, if I bin this, in a couple of months the competition is going to print Ligur’s lost last novel and we’ll look like proper bellends.”

_ If, maybe, I don’t know. _ If Crowley feels frustrated, she can’t imagine the level of gnawing irritation her boss must be suffering. “But you said that Hastur doesn’t know anything about this. They can’t claim it’s Ligur’s.”

“They could publish it first and go to court second.”

Crowley inhales and exhales slowly, but the weight on her chest doesn’t budge. “What will you do?”

“Michael thinks we shouldn’t touch this with a ten-foot pole. I haven’t told the others, but I expect the news will have made the rounds of the building by noon tomorrow.”

Crowley hums noncommittally _. _

“Well?”

“What?”

The look on Beez’s face is incredulous. “Do I have to spell i— What do you think?”

Crowley’s mouth opens and closes. She supposes she should feel flattered: asking for her opinion is only a step before asking for help. 

The conversation she had with Michael not too long ago plays in her head.

_ She would crumble to dust if she said please or thank you. _

_ No, she wouldn’t. _

Phrasing an answer is not easy. “I’m… not sure you should be asking me that question.”

Silence reverberates in the small office like a gunshot. When Beez speaks, her voice is hoarse and so, so tired. “Fuck, Crowley, what is it? Bit early for a midlife crisis. Are the stars not aligned for you to do your job?”

Crowley knows Beez isn’t angry with  _ her.  _ Well, she’s always angry at her in some capacity, but the same could be said for everyone else: Crowley isn’t special. 

She takes a deep breath.  _ Here it goes. _ “I’m handing in my notice.”

There’s no explosion, no meteorite hitting the building, a pit doesn’t open under their feet. The world keeps turning, unperturbed. Beez keeps looking at her studiously, perfectly still apart from the smoke lifting from her cigarette. She looks petrified, like a reverse Medusa, an obsidian and ivory statue. 

“Figuratively — I don’t have it with me,” Crowley specifies, mostly just to see what happens. “I’ve always assumed it was a figure of speech, but I’ll ask Tracy to help with the paperwork.” She actually starts to feel better, lighter, now that the soggy clay of her own maybes and probablys has been baked into a somewhat solid vase of determination. Which is now on display on Beez’s desk.

Even though Crowley’s able to predict most of her boss’ moves, she has no idea how Beez will react to this. Will she grab the vase and shatter it on the ground? Will she scream (probably), plead (unlikely), tell her to get out of her sight (par for the course)?

When Beez pulls her chair away from her desk, Crowley takes a step back instinctively. But her boss just opens a drawer and reaches inside with a sigh. One after the other, she sets two small glasses and a bottle down near the manuscript. After rummaging some more, she emerges with a corkscrew, shutting the drawer with a foot. “Been keeping this for a while, but it should have done it good.”

Crowley’s eyes are so wide they must take up half of her face. The bottle has no label and the glass is dark, almost black. “What’s that?”  _ Is she trying to poison me? _

“Look, I’ll tell you as plainly as I can.” Beez sticks the stabby end of the opener into the cork and gives it a turn, then two. “You’ve never been one of us. I’ve tried my best to make that starry-eyed idealism go away, but you’re almost as stubborn as I am. I explained to you, one damn time after the other, that we’re the little fish and we need to play by the rules, and  _ still  _ you think you can work around them. So it makes sense that you would someday aim higher.” Once the bottle opens with a  _ pop,  _ she pours something denser than wine into the tiny glasses. “I don’t want to know who made you an offer, not yet. Don’t look at me like that, you’re too smart to leave without one. Just promise you won’t accept anything below double your current salary.”

Drinking from the glass is the only thing Crowley can do, because she can’t possibly respond to  _ that,  _ not with the lump that’s appeared in her throat. Look, she’s had a rough few days — hell, make it a rough few  _ weeks.  _ She’s earned the right to have a little meltdown. If only her emotions could just wait a minute until she’s alone… 

Luckily, the sweet, rich, definitely alcoholic flavour chases every thought away. “This is  _ good, _ ” she says, looking down at her glass. Up closer, the liquid is a deep, dense amber. “Not poison, then?”

Beez’s glass is already empty. Ninety-nine per cent not poison. “Don’t insult me. If I wanted to get rid of you, I would be more subtle. By the way, you’re not going to be my problem anymore soon, right? Fucking cheers to  _ that,  _ at least.”

It’s such a strange thought. Ill-fitting, somehow. But a pair of new shoes needs to be worn a little before it becomes comfortable. “Maybe you just wanted revenge.”

Beez’s scoff is vaguely offensive. “For what? For leaving? What do you— Look, there’s too much going on right now for a heart to heart, but know that I never counted on you staying. This is not a place where people want to work until they retire.”

Crowley toasts to her with what remains of her alcohol. “Except for you.”

Beez squirms in her chair, but she doesn’t contradict her. “Someone has to drive the car, even when it’s up in flames.”

And maybe it’s the alcohol, maybe the rose-coloured glasses are already on her nose — maybe both — but Crowley can’t stop herself. “I will finish editing Ligur’s last book. I’ll bring Gabriel’s manuscript home. I’ll get to the bottom of this,” she adds, pointing at the fake Ligur manuscript with her chin. “And then I’ll be out of your hair.”

After a long, studious look, Beez just nods. Crowley nods back.

She’s closing the door behind her when she hears her soon-to-be-former boss mumble: “‘Home’. You’d never have lasted here. Too sappy.”

* * *

The wooden chair Crowley’s sitting in isn’t made for comfort. She’s barely sure it’s made for people. Maybe it’s one of Dad’s sculptures and she’s only mistaken it for furniture. But the afternoon light is pearly and bluish, twirls of steam rise from the mug of freshly brewed tea, the blanket wrapped around her is warm and soft, and she has work to do.

It wasn’t nearly as hard as she thought to convince Beez to let her work out of the office for a few days. Maybe it was Crowley’s emphasis on how “this is not a vacation”, maybe Beez thought she would make more progress without distractions. In any case, Crowley was already at the cottage by the time she phoned her boss, so the point was moot.

Honestly, if she could sleep for the next century, she would. As things are right now, she’s just not ready to face Zira. Every time she checks her phone and sees that Zira has not replied to her last message, she feels less and less ready to face her.

She wrote it Saturday night, sitting on her bed after a much needed shower. She knows she should have explained, but she didn’t have the energy to engage in that conversation.

_ Angel, I’m sorry. Let’s talk. Call me tomorrow? _ _   
_ _ (11.45 pm) _

She hoped the proper capitalisation and punctuation were sufficient signs that she cared, instead of hints that she had been kidnapped and forced to text against her will. Then she turned off her phone and went to bed.

Zira didn’t call her on Sunday. Now it’s Monday afternoon and Crowley still hasn’t heard from her.

Turning to work for comfort is depressingly out of character, but desperate times, et cetera et cetera.

Her jumbled thoughts take a backseat when she finally starts to read Not-Ligur’s manuscript. She was prepared for the worst — which is the way she always approached his novels — so she’s caught off guard when the first paragraph is… readable. 

Actually, it’s not bad. 

Reading on, she finds herself interested in what’s happening. She turns the first page and still no girlfriends have been killed and put into a freezer, no character has made a sexist joke. Ligur’s signature dark prose is all there, but it’s… flippant, almost humorous. It almost gives the impression that the author’s laughing at himself, winking at the audience.

Beez was right. This reads like Ligur on the surface, but it can’t be him. It reads like Ligur if someone competent had been given complete editing powers. If  _ Crowley  _ had been, specifically. And she’s fairly sure she hasn’t put her hands on this (she has to think about it — it’s happened before).

When she reaches the end of the first chapter, she finds herself slowly blinking back into reality, wishing there was more. It’s a stunning feeling, one she hasn’t felt in a while.

She’s trying to think about a way to track down this ghostwriter without a return address that doesn’t include hacking into security camera footage, when she hears the gravel outside crackle under the wheels of a car. 

She checks her phone (no calls, no texts) and sees that it’s barely 5 pm. It can’t be her father: the nearest Dad-approved supply store is in Chichester, which means a two-hour journey in his old van  _ at least, _ and he never spends less than an hour there to make it worth the trip.

Frowning, she waits and listens. Sometimes people get lost and drive all the way to the cottage before realising it’s not a public trail, to Dad’s annoyance and secret amusement. Maybe it’s a client looking for him. Anyhow, the car stops in front of the cottage without turning off the engine, which means that Crowley can either play possum and pretend that nobody’s nome, or pull a Normal Person and check if a tourist or a buyer need help.

And then she hears her voice.

Crowley is out of her chair in an instant, even though she’s half convinced that this is her going insane at last, hearing voices of people who can’t possibly be here. Leaving the blanket on the chair, forgotten, she opens the door and steps outside without bothering with shoes.

The taxi in the driveway is unexpected. So is the woman who has clearly just got out of it, and who’s currently giving the driver instructions. She’s wearing a light camel coat and shoes that would be perfect for a stroll on Oxford Street, but look delightfully out of place in Middle-of-Nowhere, East Sussex. Her hair is up in a bun that doesn’t seem messy on purpose, and there’s a small suitcase at her feet.

Those details wash over Crowley like the rising tide.

Then the taxi drives off, leaving Aziraphale Goddard on Crowley’s doorstep like a pony express from Heaven. Crowley is too busy keeping her heart from thumping a hole into her chest to make something of that metaphor.

It’s only when Zira speaks that Crowley realises she’s been staring at her in stunned silence for way longer than appropriate.

“I’m sorry,” Zira says, because of  _ course _ she starts with that. “I realise now that I should have called.”

“Wouldn’t want to ruin the surprise.” Jesus, Crowley hopes she looks better than she sounds. She runs a hand through her hair, all mussed up and sticky with the sea air, probably making the matter worse.

“Wouldn’t want to make you run away again, to be honest.” Zira smiles apologetically. She winces at her own tone, then follows Crowley’s gaze, which has fallen on her suitcase. “I thought it was better to have this discussion in person, and I was afraid it would take a while. Don’t worry, I won’t impose on you. I can check into a hotel, or even go home. Brighton’s not that far. I could be back in London in a jiffy.”

Crowley tries to parse the idea of having Zira in the cottage and then sending her away, and it doesn’t compute. Crowley will sleep on the couch and give her the spare bedroom. She would sleep on the sempervivums if that meant that Zira would stay.

Speaking of. “Who told you I was here?”

Zira grimaces while she debates whether to snitch on her informant. Her head tilts a little and her nose scrunches up, it’s really a whole thing. “…Tracy. Don’t be mad at her. She thought she was doing you a favour.”

_ I’m either going to strangle you or buy you the biggest box of chocolates they have at Charbonnel et Walker, Tracy.  _ “Can’t promise that.”

A sudden, rumbling noise startles her. Having been cooped inside all afternoon, she didn’t notice the cumulonimbi that had gathered over the sea that morning coming closer and closer, covering the sky above the cottage. She certainly didn’t notice them when she stepped out of the front door, too busy looking at her whole world showing up in a taxi.

Unlike her, Zira doesn’t look up. She hasn’t moved since the taxi went away, and she’s well on her way to becoming a statue in Crowley Sr.’s garden. Waiting for Crowley to make the first step, literally.

Well, she has come all the way down here. The least Crowley can do is be a proper host. “Are you going to come in?”

With a pained expression, Zira wrings her hands. “Do you want me to?”

Crowley frowns. Has she missed something? “You’ve come here to talk, haven’t you? Let’s. I have tea. Well, my dad has tea, this is his place. Nothing fancy, but it’s not bad. Tea, you know.” Ah, fuck, here she goes rambling again. Why is Zira asking her if she  _ wants  _ her inside? As if she doesn’t know that Crowley  _ wants  _ her always, everywhere.

But maybe that’s the problem. Maybe she doesn’t know. There’s still a whole fucking conversation that needs to happen.

She opens her mouth the same instant Zira does. “Crowley, I understand if you hate me,” she says, causing a fine web of cracks to cover the surface of Crowley’s already battered heart. “I read your texts.”

_ Right. Kill Warlock. That was high on your to-do list, Crowley. _

“I respect your decision, I really think it’s for the best, and I will leave you be, but I need to tell you something, first. Two things.”

Crowley has a flashback so vivid that she feels herself travel through time. She almost looks down to check if she’s wearing the black shift dress she chose for Ligur’s funeral, instead of her dad’s old cabled cardigan and a pair of sweatpants.

“I won’t be long. I can call the taxi back and go away right after, if you want.”

_ Please get to the point.  _ Crowley bumps her shoulder against the door jamb when she leans wearily against it. She's going to scream if this goes on any longer. She _has_ to tell Zira that she's reached entirely the wrong conclusion.

Once again, their mouths open at the same time.

“I left my job.”

Crowley frowns. Weird. Those are the words she intended to say, but for some reason they’ve come out of Zira’s mouth.

While Crowley tries to make sense of that, Zira goes on. “I spoke with my mother and Beez. Once my trial period is over, I won’t be their employee anymore. I’m leaving Cerberus  _ and  _ Celestial Publishings.”

_ Holy shit.  _ With a strange detachment, Crowley lets herself appreciate how  _ incredible _ their timing is. Somehow, they keep dancing around each other without meeting in the middle.

“The second thing,” Zira goes on before Crowley can put any of this into words, “is that I love you. I’m in love with you and I have been for quite some time. And I’m sorry…” She chokes up, swallows. 

Crowley takes a step forward. Her socks are thick enough that the gravel doesn’t hurt much, but she could be walking on coals and not give a single fuck right now.

“…I’m sorry I’ve made it your problem, and like I said I understand if you hate me.” Zira’s voice is small but determined and, as Crowley steps closer, she still isn’t looking at her. “I would, in my place. I’ve put you in a terrible position. I know that being with… That you’d sacrifice a lot for me, and you’d be miserable, and I can’t allow it. And maybe it’s presumptuous of me, because we’ve known each other for so little time, but I can’t…”  She raises her hands, oblivious to the fact that she’s currently holding Crowley’s heart in them.  “You don’t feel the same, I know, but I’m going to quit anyway. I will always be related to those people, but they’re not my family. The only family I want—” Her mouth closes so fast that her teeth click.  “The only family, Crowley, if you want…”

By now, Crowley is close enough that Zira would have to bend her neck if she looked at her, and not at the hands she’s now clasping, still and white-knuckled. Crowley’s a moth inescapably drawn to a flame. Only Zira isn’t a candle: she’s a lighthouse. She’s safety. Crowley just looks at her, drinks her in. Her cheeks are flushed, her hair made even more messy by the wind, as pale, feathery wisps escape the rushed updo. 

Crowley should probably say something.

“Of course, I realise that this is all quite hopeless.” Zira is about to add something, when she finally looks at Crowley.

Whatever she was going to say next is lost, because it’s hard to talk nonsense when someone is kissing you, even if that someone is clumsy and makes your teeth knock together and your noses bump.

When Zira lets out a helpless and surprised  _ mmm, _ Crowley jolts back, mortified. “Oh, fuck, sorry. Should have asked first. May I kiss you?”

“W— yes, but…” Zira says automatically, and Crowley barely takes the time to whisper back: “Good” before leaning in again and kissing her astounded expression away.

And that’s more or less when it starts to rain.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heartfelt thanks to my betas, my friends, my cheerleaders, my readers, my dog and everyone else who knowingly or not made this chapter possible. It really takes a village.
> 
> I hope you liked the chapter (progress! I know!!) and that I'll see you soon with a new one. In the meantime, let's cherish all the good things, however small.


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's midnight in my timezone, and the only part of Christmas I celebrate is giving gifts to my friends, so here you go.
> 
> Thanks, as always, to seekwill, whose support got me through a lot, both wrt this fic and life in general, and to trailingoff, who is a Certified Cool Person.

Standing in her socks on the cold gravel path, it’s not that Crowley doesn’t notice the fat drops of rain that are starting to plaster her hair against her scalp. But it could be raining fish and frogs for all she cares, and in fact she’s a little surprised it _doesn’t,_ given their track record with interruptions.

She would ignore a tornado.

Because she’s kissing Zira for the second time in their lives.

And she may have started it, but there’s definitely some kind of reciprocity here, or at least she thinks so, given that, when Zira pulls back for the second time, they are firmly in fingers-tangled-in-hair, short-of-breath territory. Crowley’s not sure if either of them would stand up on her own if the other were to let go.

Which is perfectly fine, because Crowley has no intention of letting go of Zira any time soon, and Zira hasn’t gone anywhere yet either.

(They didn’t really touch, the first time, not like this. No amount of nostalgia can make their first kiss perfect and not an awkward, fumbling mess. But for a second, as cheesy as it might sound, Crowley felt like she could fly away from that balcony from sheer happiness. She felt immortal. 

And _that_ feeling hasn’t changed.)

The air is thick with the smell of wet earth and wood and brine, and the afternoon light is rapidly vanishing. Crowley couldn’t make out Zira’s wide, confused eyes if they weren’t so close. Their shared breath lifts in intermingled little clouds.

“I’m a bit lost,” Zira admits, and Crowley wants to curl up inside her voice.

She leans forward to press a kiss on the corner of Zira’s mouth, which elicits a small gasp that doesn’t sound distressed in the slightest. “I love you, too,” she says then, because first things first, and because it’s true, and because Zira told her first, and because it may not be the explanation Zira’s looking for but it’s a start, and because Crowley has been thinking it for weeks without saying it out loud.

But, yes, there’s a fair bit of explaining she still owes Zira, whose messy bun is ruined by the time Crowley manages to disentangle her fingers from her hair. The rain is turning into a proper downpour, so Crowley grabs the suitcase and Zira’s hand and takes them both towards the cottage.

The sound of the door closing behind them is lost in all the racket, which turns into a distant, gentle patter. The room is warm and quiet and even darker than outside. The fire in the hearth has almost died, and Crowley feels as though she’s just taken a shower with her clothes on. 

A to-do list starts unravelling in her head. “Make yourself at home.” She peels off her dirty, wet socks and heads over to the fireplace. “I can put the kettle on, there are blankets, I have towels, and you have some spare clothes with you…” She keeps blabbering for a bit as she finally finds the poker, along the way picking up the blanket that fell on the floor when she stood earlier. Why does she feel like this is a competition and she’s losing?

When there’s no answer, Crowley turns around, and the panicked voice in her head falls silent for a moment.

Zira is looking through the glass door, towards the sea. Crowley forgot to turn on the light, but she’s glad: if she had, they would only see the room reflected against the glass, and not the not-so-distant sea in all of its terrifying glory.

It _is_ quite a show, she has to admit. One good thing about living in the city is that she doesn’t run the risk of becoming inured to the sheer fucking beauty of it.

Once the fire starts going again, Crowley hastily puts back the screen, propping the poker against the wall instead of putting it in its proper place, because doing that would take two precious seconds she doesn’t want to waste.

Behind the large windows, framed by windswept bushes on the bottom and angry grey clouds above, the Channel is a sea monster of slate blue and white, living and breathing and raging. Zira’s eyes are all pupils and she looks as though she’s just been given an unexpected present, and Crowley feels herself falling in love a bit more.

Water drips from Crowley’s hair onto her hand. Right. Towels.

The cottage’s surface area is only slightly larger than a postage stamp, so the journey to and from the downstairs bathroom takes way less time than Crowley would need to pull herself together. When she catches her reflection in the small mirror, she takes in her disastrous appearance and shakes her head. _Don’t screw it up,_ she tells herself, as sternly as she can.

When she comes back with an armful of towels, Zira is kneeling in front of the fireplace, her legs folded under her, and she’s shaking her hair free with her fingers. Her coat is draped on the back of a chair, and she’s taken off her shoes before stepping on the rug.

A few seconds pass before she turns, her arms still raised, looking every fucking inch an angel, and sees Crowley staring. “Is something wrong?”

With a weak laugh, Crowley steps closer. “No.” _For once._ She hands Zira a towel (the scratchy kind that hails back to the distant age of her parents’ marriage, perhaps, or some intergenerational hand-me-down, and is it too late to make a quick trip to the store and demand their fluffiest and softest towels?) and then sits cross-legged next to her, far enough that they don’t touch but not so far to make it weird. Weird _er._

A familiar worry line forms between Zira’s eyebrows. “You should take that off,” she says, looking at Crowley’s sweater, which clings wetly to her shoulders.

“So forward, Miss Fell,” Crowley retorts, and she immediately regrets it, because it’s so easy to fall back on their usual banter, so easy to forget that there never was a “Miss Fell” to start with.

But Zira snorts a little when she laughs, like she did dozens of times, in all the offices, balconies, streets and restaurants they’ve been together, and just like every other time Crowley wishes she could take these moments and stack them, make a house out of them, spend the rest of her days there.

Maybe she has it all wrong. Maybe Zira from publishing is the real deal, and Aziraphale Goddard the carefully constructed façade.

After a minute or five, she realises she’s staring — again. She hurriedly pulls off her soaked sweater and the t-shirt underneath, which is in the same sorry state. That leaves her in a close-fitting black tank top that doesn’t leave a lot to the imagination, if only there was something to imagine: Crowley’s all flat planes and jutting bones, arms that have never had any strength and collarbones so sharp they could give you a paper cut. She didn’t plan to have guests — and she definitely didn’t plan to undress in front of them — so she’s not even wearing one of her perfunctory sports bras. The cold air against her shoulder blades is not unwelcome, since her face and chest are probably about to catch fire.

But Zira is having a staring contest with the mantel and is pointedly not looking at her. Crowley idly wonders what would happen if she took away her top, too. _Stop, Christ._ “You resigned,” she says, bringing herself back from that particular precipice. “You absolute, magnificent loon.”

Still not looking at her, Zira answers with a non-committal _mmm_. “I thought it was going to be hard, but it really wasn’t. Once the decision was made, I mean. Getting there wasn’t easy, but once I did, I couldn’t come back.”

“I understand. It was the same for me.” As Crowley stretches her legs and brings her bare toes closer to the fire, there’s a long, puzzled silence, while Zira parses her words and Crowley belatedly realises what she said. _Fuck._ “Oh, right. Um, incidentally… I quit too.”

Not only does Zira look at her, but she also turns around so fast that she loses her balance even as she’s sitting. She almost lands on Crowley, who grabs her arms to steady her. Once again, they’re just grasping each other to keep from toppling onto the ground.

There’s a significant amount of eye contact, then. And other kinds of contact. Crowley is not sure how long she’s been holding her breath until Zira says, “What happened?”

 _God offered me a job, then a friend took me out to lunch and politely slapped me with the truth._ “In short, Frankfurt.”

It’s clear from Zira’s expression that she’s only getting away with that non-explanation for now. Her head bobs when Zira shakes her gently — well, not _that_ gently. “And when were you going to tell me?”

“Why didn’t _you_ tell _me_ what you were going to do?” Crowley stops, because she actually knows the answer to this one. _You’d sacrifice a lot for me, and you’d be miserable, and I can’t allow it,_ Zira said not fifteen minutes ago.

Slowly, Zira lets her go, but she doesn’t move away. Crowley lets her hands drop too, but before she can start stress-picking at a hangnail, Zira takes them and holds them. Their knees are still touching, too. Crowley can feel her every nerve ending buzz when the circuit closes.

Zira, on the other hand, looks inexplicably sad. “Crowley, you worked so hard for this job.”

Did she? Crowley lets out a frustrated sigh. “I don’t even know what _this_ is anymore. I mostly just went with the flow, did what they told me to do. Grumbling and complaining all the time,” she concedes when Zira arches an eyebrow, “but, yeah. I want to make choices, to make a difference. I’m not doing that where I am now.” She takes a deep breath, looking at the ceiling. “I met your mum in Frankfurt, and she offered me a position in Celestial.”

When she looks back at Zira, her face is going through a lot of emotions in quick succession. Her mouth starts to formulate five or six different questions, before settling on: “And?”

Crowley had a whole speech for this, too, explaining how she’s weighed her options and given it the proper amount of thought, how it would be great for her career and her personal life both (even if this point needs revising, in light of recent events); how it would give her authority, making her equal to Zira — or rather Aziraphale — or at least put her on her way to becoming so. How she’d be able to bring Agnes’ story to life, how she’d maybe be in a better place to fight to keep her integrity and do right by the book.

“I think…” she starts, the exact moment that the cottage’s door opens to let in a gust of wind and Crowley’s father.

* * *

Hours later, Crowley is thinking about everything that could have gone wrong and didn’t. 

(She’s so reluctant to get used to it, to getting what she wants or something very close to it, _it will be yanked away sooner rather than later, don’t get cosy.)_

And yet.

Looking back, Crowley should have known from the start that her father and Zira would have gotten on like a whole neighbourhood of houses on fire. ( _And this is a good thing,_ she reminds herself. _One singular good damned thing.)_

“I’m Crowley’s colleague,” she heard Zira introduce herself while she went upstairs to grab a dry t-shirt and steal another sweater from her dad’s closet. “Oh, I mean… Antonia’s, of course.”

Crowley heard her father reply, absolutely deadpan. “As the original Crowley, I’m very happy to meet you. Stay for dinner, I’m making Crowley Junior’s favourite.”

Crowley ran back down the stairs just in time to hear Zira ask, “And what’s that?”

“Not important!” she yelled, just as her father answered, “Dover sole.”

With not a small amount of surprise and a generous helping of caution, Crowley found herself sidelined as her dad and Zira talked about his sculptures and artists Crowley had never heard of, and venue managers they liked or hated, and self-expression, and more things she missed because she was too busy taking in the scene: her father gesticulating with a wooden spoon like a conductor and Zira leaning on the table, completely absorbed in the conversation, frizzy hair escaping a quick ponytail. After the first polite attempts from Zira to involve her, Crowley was more than content to sit back and enjoy the show. She had the feeling that Zira didn’t come from a household where this kind of dinnertime discussion was a thing.

That was why, when the old man pointed at Crowley with a spoon and said, “This one doesn’t know what I’m talking about most of the time, but you get it,” she let that cheap shot slide and enjoyed watching Zira’s face having a very hard time settling into a single expression. As Crowley bit her lips to keep herself from grinning, she accepted her role as the audience, letting herself be enveloped in the conversation between two of the people she loved most in the whole world.

_(Don’t get used to it. You know better._

_Oh, shut up,_ thought Crowley, quietly sipping her wine.)

After a short fight over who would be washing the dishes (the Crowleys tomorrow, it turned out), they had a short fight about sleeping arrangements.

“I’ll bunk downstairs,” Crowley said. “You can have my bed.”

Zira looked flabbergasted at the suggestion. “Absolutely not! I’ll sleep on the sofa.”

Crowley turned towards her dad when he laughed.

“There’s no sofa,” she confessed then, rolling her eyes. “I was going to lay a couple of blankets on the rug.”

“Antonia Crowley, you are _not_ going to do that.” Zira’s tone was categorical.

“It’s Antonia _J._ Crowley, actually. Hasn’t she told you?” her dad interjected then, ducking to dodge the breadcrumb his daughter tossed at him.

“No!” Zira looked evenly torn between outrage and curiosity. “What does the J stand for?”

“It’s just a J,” Crowley replied hastily, and this time the warning look she shot her father worked, because he dropped the subject… only to come up with a different way of messing with her.

“Well, the bed in the guest room is large enough for two.”

 _Okay, this might as well happen,_ Crowley thought. She was too tired to fight, and honestly? She wasn’t even sure what she was fighting against anymore. She looked at Zira. “If you’re okay with that.”

And that’s how Crowley ended up tucked into her bed with old pyjama bottoms and a t-shirt on — because the heating in the cottage may be what it is, but she gets hot when she sleeps, and having another person in bed makes a lot of difference, temperature-wise. Her hair is up in a loose ponytail, her forearms outside the covers, and she’s doing nothing except watching Zira read beside her.

Oh, and trying to retrace the steps leading up to this moment to pinpoint exactly what she did right. 

She’s glad Zira doesn’t mind being stared at while she reads Not-Ligur’s manuscript. It’s a perfectly reasonable way to spend an evening, especially since Zira looks soft and edible, with her recently washed hair down on her shoulders, wearing — of all things — pyjamas with a tartan motif.

If Zira was put out by the fact that the cottage’s guest room is barely big enough to fit a bed and a dresser, she didn’t let it show. When Crowley came back from her shower in the upstairs bathroom, she found Zira sitting on the edge of the bed, ignoring her open suitcase, apparently lost in thought. Crowley cleared her throat to announce herself and tell her that she could have a shower if she wanted, and Zira had thanked her and said she would do just that.

It was strange and a bit stilted, and Crowley’s hand acted on its own when it took Zira’s as she walked past, holding it gently.

They were touching more today than they had in their entire acquaintance. Not that Crowley was complaining. “Hi,” she whispered. Just a breath with a vowel at the end. Nothing.

And yet it was enough to soften the corners of Zira’s mouth, to smooth the familiar line on her forehead. She squeezed Crowley’s hand.

Crowley didn’t remember who leaned in first, or if they just met in the middle. Zira tasted like spices and white wine and Zira, and the softness of her lips was a blessing Crowley probably didn’t deserve.

 _Three,_ she thought.

“It’s not bad.”

Zira’s voice brings Crowley back from her reverie. The manuscript sits in her lap, closed.

Crowley feels a yawn tug at her mouth and doesn’t fight it. “It really isn’t, is it?” she asks, stretching and leaving her arms on the pillow, framing her head. “It’s Ligur… but it’s not. You remember what he’s like. Was. This one, it’s like it was written by his… not evil twin.”

Zira frowns. “Do I have to pretend I know nothing about this with Beez?”

Before she gave her the manuscript, Crowley thought about that. In an admittedly cursory fashion, but… Whatever happens, it’s not like it’s going to be her problem for long. “Not unless she mentions it, maybe? Don’t look at me like that, I’m in charge of solving this mystery, I’m leaving no stones unturned. Now, tell me: who do you think did it? Was it Colonel Mustard or Reverend Green?”

Zira clicks her tongue at her. “I don’t know many ghostwriters, to be honest. It could be any of them. But… I don’t think that’s the right perspective.” Noticing Crowley’s puzzled expression, she explains, “Ghostwriters don’t act on their own. They are hired by people.”

Why hadn’t she thought of that? She may not know the culprit, but she _has_ the weapon. Crowley sits up, getting the covers all tangled around her legs as she turns to face Zira. “You’re a genius. Who would have a reason to hire a ghost to do this?”

Zira looks surprised but she doesn’t recoil. “Ah. I don’t know. You said the manuscript was delivered on Saturday?”

“So Beez told me. Why?”

“I was in the building on Saturday.”

Crowley gasps. “At Cerberus?”

Zira fidgets with the front page of the manuscript instead of looking at her. “Well, no. I was meeting my mother and Beez.”

The pieces of last week’s timeline come together in Crowley’s mind. She reaches out, holding one of Zira’s restless hands. She could definitely get used to this. “Did you see anyone, maybe? When you were coming in or out?”

She shakes her head. “But I met Newton on my way in. Maybe he’s seen something.”

With a grimace, Crowley lets herself fall back on her pillow. “I wouldn’t count on it. I like the kid, but he has to think about it when you ask him what his name is.”

Laughing quietly, Zira puts the manuscript on the floor and tucks herself in. There’s a single floor lamp in the room, and they moved it to Zira’s side so she could read better. She doesn’t turn it off yet. Their fingers are still woven together. “You’re going to figure it out. _We_ are.”

Sighing, Crowley squeezes her hand. “I thought Gabriel’s manuscript would be the biggest surprise this month,” she admits. “Shows how much good I am at this job.”

“You’re an editor, not a detective.” Zira scoots closer until her head rests against Crowley’s shoulder. “I can’t believe you’re going to work for my mother.”

 _I can’t believe a lot of things, right now._ “It’s so weird to think I’ll be working at Celestial while you’re going to be a… a librarian or a professor.”

Zira’s laugh is startled but delighted. “A _librarian?”_

“I don’t know, it would suit you!” And maybe it’s the fact they’re basically snuggling, but Crowley’s barriers are down and she can’t be expected to keep the truth from seeping out. “I also did it for you, you know.”

Her tone is still light and playful, but the shift is clear. She feels Zira turn her head to look at her, and she doesn’t need to look back to know that she’s confused. 

“A grubby junior editor from Hell, next to Aziraphale Goddard? I don’t think so. A rising star, full of potential, working for the main imprint of one of the Big Six, on the other hand…”

When the silence stretches on, Crowley finally risks a glance down. She didn’t think that Zira would react with reproach or incredulity, but she also didn’t expect amused fondness. 

“Antonia J. Crowley,” she whispers, pressing a quick kiss on her shoulder. “That’s quite romantic, and also incredibly stupid.”

“Have you met me?” There’s a sudden tightness in her throat that Crowley has to talk around. 

When she looks back down, there’s a glint in Zira’s eyes that she can only call _dangerous._ “Yes, I have.”

And suddenly Crowley’s hands are full of angel, soft skin and softer hair, and Zira is straddling her with no regard whatsoever for the covers and where they end up, and then they’re kissing — _four, five, six_ — and time stops having any meaning.

This is different from the other times, though, and Crowley’s train of thought falters for a moment when she realises that she has a proper catalogue, now. Today’s kisses were unexpected, improvised, definitely heartfelt but hurried. This one is… purposeful. Zira doesn’t seem to mind when Crowley’s hands land on her hips, rucking up her shirt to cautiously brush her fingertips against skin that feels like condensed sunlight.

When she does it, Zira gasps softly into Crowley’s mouth. A strand of hair falls from her braid and tickles Crowley’s neck. It’s like being on the edge of a cliff, one that Crowley’s been ignoring all night, but now her senses are overwhelmed and she swears in her mind. “Wait.” _What are you doing?_ screams a voice inside her. Crowley ignores it and repeats, “Wait, wait, wait.”

To her credit, Zira stops immediately. She looks delicious, all flushed and more than a bit dishevelled (and a part of Crowley keeps asking _what the hell is wrong with me),_ but there’s a flash of understanding in her eyes. “Are these walls very thin?”

Crowley lets out the breath she was holding. “Very much so, I’m afraid.”

Her fears — that she’s ruined the mood like she ruins everything, that Zira will be upset and decide she’s had enough of her — are dispelled when Zira puts the rogue strand of hair behind her ear with a short laugh. “We were going a bit fast, weren’t we?”

Crowley could die from relief. She’s still holding Zira’s hips and, when she gives them a light squeeze, Zira laughs again and buries her face in the crook of Crowley’s neck.

They’re fine. Everything is fine.

She rests her head against Zira’s. Her hair smells like strawberries and kindness and home, and Crowley wonders how much love a human heart can safely hold before bursting. She shifts a little to make herself more comfortable, and, so that Zira doesn’t get the wrong idea, she wraps her arms around her, keeping her exactly where she is. “I wasn’t foreseeing any of _this_ , if I’m honest.”

Zira’s long sigh warms Crowley’s neck. “Well, me neither, as you can imagine. Wait, let me…” She slides to the side until she’s resting her head on the pillow, her breath still warm on Crowley’s neck, their legs firmly entangled, no self-consciousness to be found anywhere. Crowley doesn’t know what she did to deserve this, but she’s so grateful she could cry. “Are you comfortable?”

“Right now?” They are an outrageous tangle of limbs and covers and clothes, and one of Crowley’s arms is going numb, but it’s a small price to pay. “Very much.”

She’s about to protest when Zira shifts a little, but she’s just snuggling closer. “It’s going to be a busy few weeks, when we go back to London.”

With her eyes closed, Crowley groans. “Don’t make me think about it.”

“I’ll have to look for a new place and a new job, and you have a lot to do before you move upstairs.” Zira sounds as sleepy as Crowley feels. Her voice has dropped to a husky murmur. “But one day soon we’ll be alone, behind a closed door, in a place where the walls aren’t thin.”

“Sounds like a plan.” And good luck thinking about anything else, now. “When are you going back to London?”

Zira’s voice is drowsy, but there’s no hesitation in her answer. “I’ll take the day off tomorrow, if you need me here.”

If she asked Crowley for the moon, right now, she would have it on a silver platter before she could finish the sentence. Crowley presses a kiss to her hair. “Actually, I was offering you a ride. I think it’s time I went back.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading and for sticking with me during this incredibly bad year. AO3 has been one of my lifelines, and I hope I'm giving back even just a little fraction of what I received. We'll make it through, I promise. ♥


	15. Chapter 15

Crowley wakes up to the sound of the ocean. The fingertips of a dream are pulling away from the edges of her consciousness, and for a minute she’s both in her bed and underwater, cradled by the cool, sun-dappled waves, drifting gently awake. When the dream lets her go, she blinks slowly, settling in the here-and-now of the morning.

She believes it’s morning, anyway. It must be. A faint milky light frames the curtains and spills onto the bed in fragmented spears. She knows she’s not floating just beneath the surface anymore, but she can still hear the distant ebbing and flowing on the shoreline, rhythmic, lulling her back into unconsciousness.

It’s not the sea. Crowley is suddenly very awake. It’s breathing.

Taking stock of all the limbs under the covers, she realises there are too many of them. There’s a leg over hers, and one of her ankles is locked with someone else’s. Her left arm is squeezed between her body and another arm, and her right hand is touching something soft and yielding and _oh shit—_

Crowley pulls her hand back with a start when she realises what exactly she was touching. Her heart is knocking against her ribcage like an angry neighbour hitting the ceiling with a broom. It’s… been a while since she woke up with someone else in her bed, except it’s definitely happening _now._

Her brain is still processing, putting together memories like ill-fitting puzzle pieces with something close to panic, when Zira turns with a sleepy grunt, sliding an arm across Crowley’s waist with instinctive possessiveness. Her face is more on Crowley’s arm than on the pillow and, when Zira rubs her nose against it, Crowley can feel a damp patch on her t-shirt sleeve. Should she mind? She doesn’t. In fact, she wonders if there’s something she can do to wake up like this every morning.

She’s suddenly overwhelmed by a tenderness so powerful and devastating that she has to take a deep breath, which comes out again as a trembling sob. Crowley’s eyes well up as if this… _thing_ swelling inside her needs to get out, one way or the other.

_Great._ She does her best to keep it quiet, but soon she’s sobbing and she can’t pretend anymore. When she realises the arm around her waist is holding her more deliberately, it’s too late. “I’m sorry,” she mumbles, wiping tears and snot against the other sleeve of her t-shirt. A true lady. “Didn’t mean to wake you.”

“Sssh.” Zira moves slightly, and soon a hand is cradling her cheek, wiping away tears with a thumbpad. “It’s all right, my darling.”

And maybe it’s the tenderness, maybe it’s the relief for the absence of questions — that she would have no idea how to answer, because she hasn’t got the slightest clue why she’s crying — but something gives in inside of her, somewhere between her ribs and her stomach, and she covers her mouth with a hand as everything spills out.

A part of her is dying to run away and hide until this is all over, but she doesn’t. She can’t, and not because Zira doesn’t seem keen to let her go anywhere any time soon. Crowley could break free, she supposes, if she really wanted. It’s because Zira isn’t judgemental, isn’t upset: she just holds her, whispering sweet nothings in a tender voice, just being there until it’s over.

Crowley falls back to sleep with Zira’s arm around her shoulder, feeling exhausted and blissfully empty.

* * *

“Okay, that doesn’t happen often.”

The words come out of Crowley’s mouth even though she doesn’t feel as though she’s rehearsed them enough. But it’s easier to be brave when the air feels cleaner after a storm, and the pebbles crunch pleasantly under the soles of her shoes as she’s walking on the water’s edge, and soft, strong fingers are woven through hers, slotting together so naturally that Crowley has already gotten used to it.

“I’m glad you spoke up, darling.” Pulling her hair out of her face, Zira turns towards her and smiles. “Your thoughts were so loud I couldn’t hear mine.” When Crowley sticks out her tongue at her, Zira turns and pretends she doesn’t see her. Her tone is breezy, but the fact that she’s not looking at Crowley speaks volumes about how she really feels. “I hope it wasn’t because of my terrible manners. I know several people who would weep if they knew I showed up unannounced to an eligible woman’s house after repudiating my family and then slept in her bed.”

_An eligible woman?_ Well. This is an interesting way to frame yesterday’s events. “I’m sure the headmistress of your finishing school would be appalled. Not to mention the Queen.”

“I could never show my face at Buck Place again.” Without letting Crowley’s hand go, Zira picks up a pebble. “My dear, feelings exist and they need a way out, sometimes. There’s nothing wrong with it.”

“There’s everything wrong with it,” Crowley mumbles, ruminating while she watches the smooth pebble in Zira’s hands, dark pink, almost purple. “Wait. ‘Again?’ What do you mean, ‘again’?”

But Zira is tapping a finger against the pebble, thinking. There are a couple of false starts, as if she’s about to reveal a secret but isn’t sure how to put it. “I… don’t like touching.”

_That’s not true._ Crowley bites her tongue. It feels like a revelation, especially coming from a woman who’s always been liberal with her touches. There’s a folder in Crowley’s brain dedicated to the habit Zira developed of brushing or tapping Crowley’s arm to highlight a point she was making or catch her attention. Crowley has made keeping people at a distance into a competitive sport, but for some reason she’s always been comfortable having Zira in her space. Craved it, even.

“This doesn’t happen often, either.” Echoing Crowley’s phrasing, Zira lifts their joined hands. “There’s something about you, Crowley. I admit my feelings towards you are a bit… tumultuous, right at this moment, but even now… you feel like an oasis. Like when I’m around you I can put my feet up and let my hair down and just be.” She looks at the cliffs. “You feel like home.”

_It’s unfair,_ Crowley thinks, swallowing around the lump in her throat. A part of her wants to stop Zira, not because Crowley doesn’t deserve this (she doesn’t, but that’s not the point), but because she’s a selfish, greedy creature and she wants to rewind time and live through these moments again, and again, and again, because it doesn’t get more perfect than this.

“I tried to hold back at first, you know? We were colleagues, and you didn’t remember who I was or know my real name. But, well… you know how it went. Then I told myself that if I knew you better, I’d surely find out that you weren’t as perfect as you seemed, that these feelings would go away on their own if I knew all your flaws.”

“Gosh, where to start.” Crowley’s voice is hoarse.

“Indeed.” There’s a smile in Zira’s voice. “You really are terrible, my dear. You can’t stand still or sit properly. You care without shame or hesitation. And you make terrible puns.”

“My puns are fine.”

“What I mean is that you were kind enough to let me know the good and the bad parts of you, and I love them all.”

Crowley’s heart is doing interesting and dangerous things behind her ribs. “You were my first kiss,” she says, not even bothering to hide the fact that she’s shaking. “I’m not… great at the old intimacy thing either, but… it comes so easily when it’s you. It’s…”

When it’s clear that Crowley can’t find the words, Zira speaks for her. “It’s harder to stay away than to be close to you.”

* * *

The meeting is going as well as a meeting with Gabriel Goddard can go.

Coming back to the office after her short sort-of-break wasn’t as traumatic as Crowley anticipated. On the contrary: she’s never been more eager to go to work. Her to-do list has its own gravitational pull by now: Celestial is going to call her soon to seal the deal (according to a stuffy email from HR, at least), the identity of the ghostwriter and whoever hired them is still a mystery, Ligur’s last manuscript still needs to be edited, and obviously Gabriel and his nonsense haven’t gone anywhere — but Crowley’s determined to tackle both her mundane tasks and her side investigation head on.

Also, being in the office means she’s a flimsy excuse away from being around Zira all she wants.

She’s filled with the sort of manic energy that makes people think it’s a good idea to climb a mountain or jump off a cliff. Half of her brain is always projecting a feature showing the events of the past two days. As she listens to Beez explaining what a contract is to Gabriel, Crowley is walking along the shore with Zira yesterday morning, after breakfast but before leaving. While Gabriel explains what marketing is to the person in charge of marketing, Crowley is coming back to the guest room after going downstairs to have a glass of water, tip-toeing her way to the bed so she won’t wake Zira. When Beez shakes Gabriel’s hand and lies through her teeth saying, “We are excited to have you on board, Goddard”, Crowley is still recovering from the realisation that yes, Zira is in _her_ bed, it wasn’t just a vivid, lovely figment of her imagination.

When Crowley looks at Gabriel and his bright smile that seems straight out of an assembly line, Crowley is reminded of how Zira chose Crowley over the Goddards. While he drones on and on about his _vision_ for the book as Michael tries to usher him out, Crowley thinks about her plans to help Zira job hunt tonight after dinner.

And life is tolerable.

That is, until they finally manage to reach the hall — Crowley and Warlock strategically trailing behind to maximise their chances of a tactical retreat — and she glimpses the publicity office door opening and a blonde head and a tan sweater coming out.

They were on the A23 when Zira confirmed that she avoids Gabriel at work. “He wouldn’t even do it on purpose. He would just call me 'my dear half-sister!' in a roomful of people who aren’t supposed to know, and then laugh and leave without so much of an apology,” she said, then grumbled when Crowley told her to please breathe and assured her that she wouldn’t let Gabriel within a thirty-mile radius of her.

“Gabriel!” Crowley shouts, because her voice only knows one setting when she’s panicked and because she _needs_ to catch his attention, after all.

All heads turn towards her, including the one she’s trying to save, which retreats hastily into the publicity office.

The spotlight has never been Crowley’s favourite place, but weaselling her way out of it is her speciality. “See you at the holiday party!”

She doesn't need a mirror to know that her face has turned bright red: for one, it feels like someone set it on fire, and furthermore Warlock is squinting at her, likely trying to figure out what her damage is. Everyone knows that Crowley would rather cut her own leg off or even work overtime, rather than show up at Celestial's annual office party.

Everyone but Gabriel, who beams at her, unsuspecting as a babe. “Of course! See you all there!”

“Cool.” Without giving her brain a chance to catch up, her hands take the wheel and she flashes Gabriel two thumbs up. She stands still while his smile loses a bit of its wattage, ignoring both Beez and Michael, the latter looking at her with a clinical expression, the former finally snapping and grabbing Gabriel’s elbow to try and physically show him out.

“What's wrong with you?” Warlock hasn’t moved, and is still staring at her with a scared and vaguely concerned expression. He seems seconds away from pulling out his phone and making a video of her to post on whatever social network the kids are using these days to make fun of their elders.

Crowley can feel three new grey hairs appear with that thought and she shakes her head to exorcise it. “Come with me,” she says, dragging him back into the empty conference room.

* * *

Of all the things Crowley isn’t looking forward to, having to tell her colleagues that she’s resigning — that she _and Zira_ are, in fact — is almost at the top of the list. 

They might get emotional. Hell, _she_ might get emotional.

“So I told him the reason I’m not freaking out about having to work with Gabriel Goddard is because I won’t have to.”

“I see,” Zira says.

They have regrouped in the photocopier room under the pretence of a coffee break, but the espresso machine on the metal racks is ignored by the both of them. Crowley thinks her nerves will vibrate out of her body if she adds caffeine to the mix.

“And I told him that, even if he’s a pain in my neck…”

“You didn’t say ‘neck’.”

“I didn’t say neck,” Crowley concedes, because Zira looked very cute when she said that. “But I told him I’ll miss him nonetheless. And he just… shrugged. I know I’m only moving upstairs, but that was _harsh.”_

Zira frowns. “You wanted him to be upset?”

“Of course not!” Crowley shoves her hands in the pockets of her jeans. “Well, maybe a little.”

It’s easy to pretend the cramped photocopier room is cosy instead, when she’s sharing it with Zira. Cerberus’ excuse for a break room could stand to be a little smaller, even. She gazes at Zira while the other woman is ruminating on her words, looking like something painted by a Flemish artist, and she thinks, _These. These are the moments that make everything worth it._

Because it’s not just that she’s irredeemably in love; it’s that the feeling is like a magnifying glass. Admitting that she cares about Zira makes her appreciate the other people whose threads are woven through the misshapen tapestry of her life. People like Tracy and Agnes and Anathema.

People like Warlock.

“I don’t think Warlock is the type of person who’s comfortable showing when he’s hurt,” Zira says in the end, her voice soft. “I think he’s just used to people leaving.”

Something in Crowley’s chest rattles loose at those words, but she ignores it. It’s fine. She can work with that. She’ll show him she’s not abandoning anyone, by any means necessary. “He’s going to be fine, though.”

“I’m sure he will,” Zira confirms, immediately and with conviction.

Another small part of a great weight lifts off Crowley’s chest, and she exhales, running a hand through her already messy hair. “How did it go with Michael and Newt?”

“They wish us both good luck in our next endeavours.”

Crowley snorts. That’s a Michael sentence if she ever heard one. 

“What did Tracy say?”

“She kept her cards close to her chest until the very last moment. Now I know she had a bet going on, because she was opening the drawer she keeps her books in before I even left the room.”

Crowley decided early on that Zira’s laugh was one of the best things in the world, or maybe even her favourite, especially when she was the cause of it. This opinion hasn’t changed, but due to certain recent developments, her actual favourite thing now is kissing it away from Zira’s mouth. 

Something she tries to do as often as she can, which isn’t remotely as often as she wants.

Since the photocopier room shares a wall with the editors’ office, Crowley can hear the insistent ringing of a phone, but elects to ignore it in favour of biting Zira’s lower lip. The small part of her brain that’s not keeping tabs on Zira’s thumbs tracing circles just above her hip bones informs her that someone must be calling on her landline, and the theory is confirmed when, after a long time, the ringing stops and Michael’s annoyed voice comes through.

“Where on earth did she go?”

“I need to go,” she whispers as she pulls away.

“Must you?” With the look of someone who knows she’s playing dirty, Zira slides her arms around Crowley’s neck and pulls her closer. 

And Crowley doesn’t have the strength, physical or otherwise, to fight against this. Something rattles loudly when they lean against the metal scaffolding with Cerberus’ office supplies, and they freeze for a moment.

From the editors’ office, Crowley’s landline rings for a second time, and for a second time it gets ignored.

The next ominous rattling sound they hear, a few moments later, doesn’t come from the scaffolding.

“Crowley, are you here? How many times do I have to tell you I’m not your secre— Oh, dear Lord.” Taking a step back, Michael shields herself behind the door she just opened. “You’ve had a call, I left a message on your desk. And get out of there _now,_ the both of you.”

“Oh, there you are, dear!” Tracy’s face appears over Michael’s shoulder, as cheerful as the other woman is exasperated, and she hands Zira a few sheets of paper stapled together. “The paperwork you were waiting for.”

“Thank you, my dear. Excuse me, Michael.” Once an appalled Michael clears the way, Zira exits the photocopier room, taking her papers from Tracy as she walks by as if nothing happened, but she turns to smile at Crowley before disappearing down the hall.

Ignoring Michael’s muttering under her breath, Crowley follows her. Before going back to her own desk, Tracy leans in towards Crowley. “Don’t mind her, she’s just bitter because she lost a bet,” she whispers.

The note on Crowley’s desk has nothing but a phone number and a name on it. Michael’s handwriting is so pointy you could stab yourself on it, but it’s also very precise. Crowley sits down and dials the number.

It takes five rings for the person at the other end of the line to pick up, and when they do there’s only a curt “yes” without even the common courtesy of a question mark after it.

Fine. Two can play at this game. “It’s Crowley.”

“Oh, yes. This is Uriel Smith.”

“Sure.” Crowley has never heard of her. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

“We would love to speak to you, if you’re available.”

We? “I have a bit going on at the moment,” she says, just noticing in that moment Michael’s death glare.

The so-called Uriel clears her throat tactfully. “I mean in person. I understand you’re on the ninth floor at the moment? Would you mind coming up?”

Oh, that clarifies a few things. _Uriel Smith from Celestial._ Well, she could have said so to begin with.

Crowley’s next thought is that this is the worst possible time, any way you look at it. Her hair is an absolute mess after she let it dry in a ponytail last night, and is rolled up and pinned with a pencil on top of her head, looking more or less like a nesting ground for storks. She's wearing a fake leather jacket over a black shirt with IF LOST RETURN TO HELL in a sans-serif white font, because she not only hasn’t unpacked from her trip yet, but she also hasn’t done laundry in approximately three years and this is literally her last clean shirt. Her mother is probably having a splitting and inexplicable headache right now.

But since when does Crowley care what they think of her at Celestial? Whether for good or (likelier) bad, they’re stuck with her by God’s decree. “I’ll be up in a sec.”

* * *

Anxiety is not the main reason Crowley starts sweating the moment she steps into Celestial headquarters: she forgot they have actual heating up here. If the gilded writing on the glass doors and the blinding cleanliness weren’t enough, this is a tangible sign that Crowley has _made_ it, and that the days of shitty portable heaters may be over. 

The small office with Uriel Smith’s name neatly printed on a placard is immediately on her right. As she knocks on the open door to announce herself, Crowley sees a room that’s probably not much larger than Beez’s office but is made much airier by a large window and minimalist furniture. The eerie absence of any kind of clutter gives it the sterile look of a spaceship from the movies. At the centre of it, nonchalantly perched on the edge of a desk, is a woman who belongs in the same magazine Michael spawned out of. Her tailored suit is immaculate and the glow of her dark skin looks unreal.

Crowley stopped giving a fuck about her appearance at some point in her late twenties, but it’s hard to conjure her usual confidence when she’s so aware of her messy self.

She’s about to speak up when she notices that the mayor of Stepford is on the phone. The woman raises a manicured finger — well, Crowley can’t see all the way over there, but come on, it must be manicured. “Just a moment, please.” Her pleasant tone turns clipped when she addresses the person on the phone. “You don’t understand, I need support immediately. Yes. I hope so.”

“Will the end of the world be prevented today too?” asks Crowley when the woman hangs up without a thank you or a goodbye.

Uriel Smith shakes her head. “My spell check stops working, sometimes. It makes working impossible.”

“It _does.”_ See, they have something in common, after all. “Have you tried to…”

“No.” Uriel looks at her as if she's suggested hacking into Scotland Yard's database. “It's IT's job. They’re paying Shadwell for something, after all.”

Until now Crowley, like many others in the building, wondered exactly what they paid Shadwell for. She can’t help but reminisce about last February, the time she and her colleagues waited until they thought the shitty heater had given up the ghost for good before Tracy let them call him to fix it, insisting that the poor man had too much on his hands already. The freaky old guy had looked at them, all huddled up in the editors’ office with scarves and gloves on, as if _they_ were the loopy ones.

“I’m glad you could make it.” Uriel’s voice brings her back to the present. “Let me give you a tour.”

Before Crowley can point out that she already knows the ins and outs, since this is where she had her very first job, Uriel walks past her down the hall, and Crowley has no choice but to follow.

Walking the corridors of Celestial’s headquarters fills her with a weird mix of nostalgia and anticipation, along with a sprinkling of dread to spice things up. She regrets leaving her sunglasses downstairs: Celestial’s penchant for blindingly white wall paint and furniture hasn’t changed in the years since she went away.

“This is our first floor. You can find our administrative offices all along this hall, starting with reception, right here.” Her guide points helpfully. “We have our copiers, scanners and office supplies here, as well as the bathrooms. But upstairs is where the magic happens!”

They walk up the narrow staircase with strategically placed plants, and Crowley notices the labelled bins for paper and plastic and the fancy water coolers on the landing halfway to the top. “You know, I’ve worked here before.”

“As you can see, our second floor is an open space, very modern.” It’s hard to tell if Uriel is ignoring her on purpose or if she’s just committed to giving her the tour. In any case, she leads the way through a starkly modern-looking workspace, even more polished and aseptic than downstairs. “This second floor is only accessible through the private staircase we just climbed. We call it…”

“The sanctum.” Crowley can’t help but finish the sentence.

She remembers this place very well. Being admitted here as a fresh-faced graduate felt like winning an unspoken challenge. There she was, able to shove her badge and credentials in the faces of everyone who’d ever told her that publishing wasn’t a realistic job goal. And there she was, with her desk and the fancy signature at the bottom of her emails and like-minded colleagues… all with their Oxbridge grandparents and mothers who knew each other and parties they enjoyed going to. They didn’t have to use euphemisms when they talked about their fathers’ careers, and their idea of self-expression was radically different from Crowley’s. Not that anyone ever remarked explicitly upon her combat boots and ripped jeans, the first day. Replacing them with plain jeans and button-up shirts had been entirely her decision.

(Later, when she joined Cerberus’ lawless fashion wastelands, she thanked whatever part of her subconscious had made her shove her old stuff to the bottom of her closet, instead of just throwing it all away.)

“As you can see, we have a few private offices up here for the leaders of our creative team.” Uriel moves towards the far end of the offices, trusting that Crowley will follow her. 

A few heads — none that Crowley recognises — lift as they pass, but Crowley knows that every surreptitious glance at her will fuel the ever-thriving gossip machine. This may be the point of making her come all the way here: showing her off like a prized catch. Or making her the laughing stock of the whole office even before she starts.

Each of the offices Uriel mentioned appear to have glass walls and a large window, which make them look like a cross between a glorified cubicle and an aquarium. The one Uriel ushers her into is unoccupied and bare. There’s just a weird-looking stool, the kind that’s allegedly good for your posture, and a lean adjustable desk with only enough room for a screen, a keyboard and a mouse. The room smells like a new car, and Crowley hates it on principle.

“And this is going to be your office.”

Several replies die on Crowley’s lips. “My office,” is what she settles on eventually. Which is a good reply in that it’s not confrontational nor disbelieving, but doesn’t prompt any clarification from Uriel either. “When’s the rest of the furniture coming?”

“We believe that a minimalistic setup increases productivity and keeps people focused.” At last, Uriel notices Crowley’s expression. “This is it.”

_Where will I keep my hard copies?_ Crowley wants to ask. She also wants to know how she’s going to look through proofs when the only horizontal surface is smaller than a hospital tray.

Only, everything seems very futile, all of a sudden.

“Okay,” she says, in a neutral voice.

“Perfect. I should go, now. Agatha’s proofreader forgot to edit out the swear words in the manuscript she’s working on, and for some reason _I_ have to deal with _that._ ”

Crowley has no idea who Agatha is or why she’s waging a war against swear words. She tries to imagine Beez conceiving the idea. Well, Michael would probably do it. “Hate when that happens.”

Her sarcasm flies several miles over Uriel’s head. “It’s a tough job, but someone has to do it. Right?”

Even though her head feels swathed in cotton, Crowley attempts a weak smile to show her solidarity.

As they make their way back downstairs, she notices other things that went past her before. Despite the occasional phone ringing and the fingers running on the keyboards, nobody is speaking to each other in the open office space. Uriel’s steps echo on the linoleum. And, when Crowley takes a closer look at them as she’s passing by, she realises that the potted plants on the landing are fake.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I haven't set foot in an office in almost a year, but some things you don't forget.


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, friends! Just a heads up that this is the chapter that earns the _Implied Homophobia_ and the _complicated family relationships_ tags. I'll put a short synopsis in the end notes, so you can decide for yourselves whether to read the scene or skip it. Take care of yourselves!

The lights on Crowley’s street are on early. November has come at last, trudging behind its retinue of fog and rain and the return to standard time. It’s the end of a busy week, and she’s cold and tired and decidedly _not_ looking forward to squeezing in some more work after dinner, but it’s what she’ll do.

From the phone pressed between her shoulder and ear comes a clatter and a muffled curse. As she opens the front door of her building and takes the phone in her hand again, Crowley asks, “Are you okay over there?”

More clattering, then a sigh. “I might be a bit nervous.”

Zira’s voice is deceptively calm: it sounds like a layer of ice that’s about to break. Crowley imagines her inside her apartment, where she hasn’t been yet — look, it’s been a _very busy_ week — picturing a lampshade with a thin scarf on it, a big mirror with tiny lights around it, clothes strewn on a fluffy comforter, and Crowley’s voice coming out of the speaker while Zira is pacing around, uncertain about what to wear, probably draped in a dressing gown. White silk, maybe, or ivory, or a pinkish cream, with a hint of lace barely showing where the neckline is falling open and _Christ, Crowley, focus_. “You shouldn’t. She’s a friend of yours, it’s going to go well.”

“Rita-from-school was a friend. Who knows where Rita-the- _Vanity-Fair_ -executive-editor stands.”

“You convinced the woman to give us a three-page write-up of a mediocre novel — rest in peace, Ligur — just by saying _please._ ” Safe in the knowledge that Zira can’t see her, Crowley rolls her eyes fondly. This has been going on all day. “I doubt she would have done that if she hated you.”

There’s a doubtful murmur on the other end of the line.

“Look, think of it as just a chat. Be your clever, lovely self. At the very least, you’re going to be offered a fancy dinner.”

Zira’s laugh is weak, but it’s a laugh. Crowley counts it as a win. “That’s something to look forward to.”

“And, if it turns out that she wants to hire you…”

“We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.” Zira exhales shakily. “Thank you for keeping me company.”

“Any time, angel. Text me under the table if you get bored.”

“Will do,” she answers, completely serious. “I’ll talk to you later, then. Or tomorrow, if it gets late.”

“Later is fine.” It will be a late night for her, too, even if less fun than Zira’s.

There’s a silence, then, and Crowley can almost hear Zira debating whether to share her thoughts or not. She knows better than to press: Zira’s under a lot of stress already and she will share when she’s ready. “It’s going to be okay,” she says instead, stressing each word. “Have a good night, you.”

“You too, darling.”

 _Darling, sweetheart, dearest._ Zira has been experimenting with pet names this week, and each time it’s been like jumping through a flaming hoop for Crowley. It turns out that maintaining her composure around their colleagues when Zira absent-mindedly calls her “love” is exactly as hard as she had imagined.

Their half-hearted attempts to be subtle are met with unadulterated glee by Tracy and with long-suffering stares and grinding of teeth by Michael and Beez. The latter two have been relatively out of Crowley’s hair, lately — small blessings — since they’ve been interviewing potential replacements for her.

“Out of the question,” Beez answered, when Crowley asked her if they were going to pick someone from Celestial again. “Have you seen them?”

Crowley thinks of the perfect, anonymous faces she glimpsed during her tour upstairs with Uriel, and a shiver runs down her spine.

She’s so caught up in her own thoughts that she doesn’t notice anything wrong until she finds her front door unlocked.

Anger floods her veins without warning, accompanied by a sinking feeling that tastes like despair. For a few, blessed moments she had forgotten this could happen.

She knows it’s stupid, and she hates cliches, but while they were on the phone last night Zira was talking about looking for a new apartment, a less expensive one, maybe in the suburbs. And when they said goodnight and hung up, Crowley looked around her spacious living room from the two-seater she was sitting on and thought: two people could live in this apartment. Maybe not their whole life, but for a while.

She’s been letting that idea simmer, thinking about all the drawbacks, looking for the right words to ask Zira what she thinks about it. But hope is a vicious thing to squash once it’s reared its funky little head.

The reality of her mother coming and going as she pleases, though, might just do it.

The keys are leaving painful indents in her palm, and she forces herself to relax. She breathes in and out like at the start of Tracy’s mindfulness lessons, letting her rage simmer down to a manageable level. She’s going to talk to her mother, but she can’t be angry while she does it: being emotional won't play in her favour.

On the other hand…

The door opens with such force that it slams against the wall as Crowley barges in and reaches the kitchen area in a few long steps. Just as she expected, all the lights are on and her mother is busy at the stove. Crowley doesn’t stop to find out what she’s cooking before switching the burner off. “Get out.”

Rose jumps as if she’s been slapped. “Antonia! You scared me.”

Turning towards her mother, Crowley crosses her arms. Even then, her hands don’t stop shaking. “I'm not in the mood. Get out.”

Only a few weeks ago, the sight of Rose’s pressed lips would have made Crowley relent. _It’s not worth fighting_ , she would tell herself. _Satan always gets what she wants._

When she doesn’t budge, Rose looks at her coolly. “Move out of the way.”

“I'll change the lock. I’m serious.”

Her mother’s lips curve in a thin smile. “Of course.”

When she was a girl, Crowley learned a few facts. One of them is that plants are safer than people (thanks, Dad). Another is that there’s no conflict that can be avoided if you’re good enough at dodging it or running away (thanks again, Dad). And a third is that her mother always gets things her way.

But, as she grew up, she found out a few more facts. Plants don’t tell stories. Playing it safe is boring. And if her mother wins all the arguments, that’s because they always let her.

Her heart is beating so loud that surely the whole building can hear it. She expects the neighbours to knock on her door and make a noise complaint any second. “I’m seeing someone.”

Rose doesn’t flinch. She doesn’t say anything, either: she just looks at her like she’s waiting to see what this inconsequential information has to do with anything.

There’s a stabbing pain behind Crowley’s ribs. She tightens her arms around her chest. “It means I want some privacy.”

The impatience on Rose’s face takes on a shade of mocking amusement. She still doesn’t say anything, and Crowley’s brain is screaming at her to run away.

Staying where she is requires every ounce of energy she has left, but she doesn’t move.

Still, her mother keeps looking at her with idle disapproval, which — to be fair — is how she always looks at her.

“I said…”

“I heard you.” Rose’s voice cuts through her sentence like an ice shard. As always, there’s no emotion in her voice, but somehow Crowley _knows_ that she’s never been so angry at her as she is now. Maybe it’s something in the lines around her mouth, or the tightness of her shoulders, as though she wants to hit her but is too disgusted to touch her. “I’ll pretend you haven’t said anything, and we’ll put this behind us, shall we?”

There’s an actual question mark at the end of that sentence. For a brief moment, Crowley almost admires her confidence that she can shape reality with “shall we”s and “it’s best if”s. That she can move people like dolls just because it’s easier to let her win.

The alternatives are clear: Crowley can stay silent, or say the single bravest syllable in the English language.

And, for one blessed moment, her mind is clear and she’s not afraid.

“No.”

As soon as she says it, every emotion comes back, running through her in a wave of nausea. But, even as she braces herself to throw up in the kitchen sink, the look on her mother’s face is worth it a thousand times.

And maybe it’s the stress, maybe it’s just a weird side effect of the adrenaline running through her, but Crowley laughs right in Rose’s stricken face.

 _She’s just a person_ , a voice inside her says, making her feel blessedly relieved. It’s been a wild few minutes, but it feels like a spell has just been broken.

“This can’t come as a surprise to you,” she says, leaning against the stove. “After all the flannel shirts, the posters, the rainbow flags in my room…”

She doesn’t know if it’s her attitude or the truth that makes Rose look as if she’s sucked on a lemon, but it’s delightful anyway. “I’m not sorry for you.”

“Good, there’s no reason to be.”

“You are the one who’s going to live with this decision.” Rose pretends she hasn’t heard her. “And it’s going to be an awful, horrible life. You’re right, I’m not surprised. I gave up hope a long time ago, but I still thought you would at least _pretend_.”

Of course. Still smiling, Crowley nods. Rose may be trying to hurt her, but everything she says just makes it easier to do what Crowley has to do. “If you’re done, I would like for you to get the hell out of my house.”

Rose doesn’t move, but the sheer force of the anger seeping out of her pores makes her loom over her daughter. “This is the worst thing you could do to me.”

“That’s nice to know.” Crowley hears her own voice, slightly strangled but unwavering, come from far away.

It’s a bit late to have this sort of epiphany, probably, but for the first time it’s clear as day. It’s not that her mother doesn’t love her and doesn’t like her, that’s hardly a revelation. It’s that her house has never been a safe place. It’s never really been hers.

This has always been and always will be Rose’s house. At least in Rose’s mind, which is what counts.

With a shallow sigh, Crowley lets her arms drop. She doesn’t look at her mother as she walks past her towards the front door, which is still open. (Crowley spares a quick thought for whoever overheard their conversation. Nobody deserves that.) She slams the door shut behind her.

* * *

Somehow, Crowley keeps it together until the moment she hears a familiar voice answering the phone. “Wrong number.”

She looks up, blinking at the leaves that block out most of the lamppost’s light. The ground is hard under her, and Berkeley Square’s iron fence is cold against her back. The adrenaline of the confrontation with Rose wore off a while ago, and Crowley is shaking. Her jacket really is too light for November in London. At some point she dropped her bag on the floor of her flat and never picked it up. She has her phone with her just because she slipped it in her pocket after talking with Zira.

Zira. What Crowley wouldn’t give to hear her calm, soothing voice.

Beez’s voice, on the other hand, is singularly pissed off, and Crowley has no idea why she’s crying with relief. She presses the back of her hand against her mouth for a second, to try and physically steady her words. “It’s me.”

The reply doesn’t come immediately. Crowley has plenty of time to regret the instinct that made her scroll past Zira’s number — _she’s at the_ Vanity Fair _dinner, you don’t interrupt a_ Vanity Fair _dinner_ — and tap the contact _horrible boss_.

“I know it's you. That’s why I said you have the wrong number.” Perhaps Beez has clocked her shaky, pathetic little voice, or perhaps it’s just Crowley’s imagination, but her boss sounds a good one percent softer. “I hope it’s a matter of life and death, or you’re fired.”

That startles a laugh out of Crowley, which unfortunately turns into a sob. Her entire face is _leaking_ , God. She rubs her nose against her sleeve, which is gross, but. Better on her shirt than on her face.

“I think…”

A gust of wind sends a pile of dead leaves twirling on the path, and a couple of them get caught on Crowley’s boots. She didn’t even have the chance to take them off. She keeps shaking.

Really, what happened is pretty simple, when you think about it objectively. “I think I just burned the last bridge I had with my mother and I— I don’t know what to do.”

It’s not clear to her why she’s telling all this to her boss, and Beez must be equally confused, because there’s a short silence on the line. “Is she still alive?”

“Yes?”

“I said _life and death_ , Crowley, Jesus,” Beez mutters. “I can only presume you told her to go fuck herself, and not a moment too soon. Congratulations. Was it that hard?”

Her breezy tone cuts right through Crowley’s funk, bringing her back into the swing of their usual banter. “Turns out, the hard part is the after.”

This is probably why her instinct made her reach out to Beez instead of Tracy or Anathema. She doesn’t need to be coddled or pitied, and Beez would rather cut off her own arm (or someone else’s) than do that.

What Crowley needs is a grounding presence. The harsher, the better.

Beez, as always, delivers. “There are hard things in this world. Refusing to conform. Being a woman in a position of authority. Algebra. This is plain as white bread. Look—”

There’s something shuffling on the line as Beez moves, or maybe goes to another room. Crowley has no idea where she lives, or even if she lives alone. She doesn’t know what her boss’s life looks like outside of Cerberus.

Beez’s voice sounds closer when she speaks next. “You’re supposed to be smart. Don’t overthink this. Sure, it’s not pleasant, but unless Satan apologises…”

An ugly laugh spills out of Crowley at the thought of Rose apologising for anything, ever. At the same time, Beez calling her “Satan” eases the tightness in Crowley’s chest.

“Right. Why are you bothering me, then? You’ve just lost some dead weight. Go celebrate. Cry, if you have to, but don't cry for _her_. She doesn’t deserve it.”

When Crowley exhales, the tiniest fraction of the weight on her shoulders lifts. Inch by inch, she’s crawling out of the pit. Intellectually, she knows Beez is right. It would be lovely to let her know how much she’s helped, but Crowley doesn’t know how to do it in a way that doesn’t sound confrontational. So she just says, “Thanks.”

“Don’t mention it. Seriously, don’t. Ever.”

A real smile appears on Crowley’s face. “Hey, boss, can I crash at your place tonight?”

“Absolutely not. See you on Monday.”

After she hangs up, Crowley tries to wipe her tears away with her hands and her sleeves. She must look a mess. And she can’t help but feel disappointed. She took it for granted that she would have her life together in her thirties, and look at her sitting on a footpath at night, virtually homeless, with no money on her, no ID, not even a proper coat.

But she _does_ have a cool job, or at least she’s about to. She has Zira, even if all they can scrape together right now are stolen moments in the copier room.

And, weird as they may be, she has friends.

* * *

When the sturdy wooden door opens, Crowley is hit with an incense-scented warmth that threatens to bring tears to her eyes for the second time this evening.

As she blinks repeatedly, Anathema scans her from the doorway, no doubt running a mental triage. When Crowley texted her from the park bench, she didn’t specify what happened, just that she needed a couch to sleep on and she would be out of Anathema’s hair in the morning.

Now they’re face to face, Anathema seems to read her better than a well-formatted proof. “Are you okay?”

“I’ve been better,” Crowley admits, since it’s clear that she can’t lie. “Are you sure I’m not bothering you?”

When Anathema shoots her a _don’t be daft_ look, for a moment she looks just like Agnes. She turns around, leaving the door open. “Come in. And close the door, please.”

As Crowley steps in, her first impression of Anathema’s house is that it’s very her, and at the same time not at all. It’s everything she would have expected of the place her proofreader lives in: the two-storey terraced house just off King’s Road (which would have been an easy commute, had Crowley not left her Oyster card back in the flat) has an elegant, pristine front and stately dark interiors, with old furniture and wooden details, narrow corridors and narrower stairs.

The signs that this is a lived-in and well-loved place are everywhere: dried flowers hanging from strings, furniture topped with purposefully tossed shawls and runners, rugs with twirling motifs. The place couldn’t scream “Anathema” more if it arched an eyebrow at Crowley and pointed out a typo.

And yet there’s something a little… odd, a sense of suspension that Crowley feels right at the base of her skull. She can’t explain what’s missing, but something is.

Or maybe she’s just tired and she needs to lie unconscious on a flat surface for a while.

Anathema leads her to a small room dominated by a majestic oak desk in front of a large window. On the desk sit a laptop, an art nouveau lamp, the contents of a few stationery stores and several piles of paper. Against the opposite wall, a wealth of pillows and blankets almost hides a couch.

Anathema gathers the excess pillows and tosses them on the office chair behind the desk. She shows her the bathroom, and when Crowley comes out she finds her friend waiting for her with clean pyjamas and dinner leftovers.

Crowley’s grateful that Anathema doesn’t press the issue of why Crowley is in her home office right now, wearing incredibly flattering green pyjamas and eating chicken curry. She doesn’t ask if Crowley wants to talk about it, and she looks at her mostly without judgement. Anathema knows her enough to understand that treating her like a stray cat is the best course of action, and that’s great. Even when she asks if Crowley needs anything else, it’s clear from her tone that “no” is a completely acceptable answer.

“No, I’m fine,” Crowley lies. Indeed.

She’s not fine. As soon as she’s alone, the silence looms over her, circling her, biding its time. In an effort to ignore it, Crowley stands up from the couch, pacing the room, looking for something to focus on that isn’t the movie of everything that went wrong tonight playing in her head. Lucky for her, an entire wall of the small room is occupied by a sturdy library overflowing with books.

_(“…and I think it’s been a good year for speculative fiction, too, even if not as good as two years ago. Don’t you think, Crowley?”_

_It’s a casual, simple question. Crowley throws up her arms in a big stretch, ignoring the four distinct pops in her back, and gives a casual, simple answer. “I don’t know, I don’t read books.”_

_It’s not until she hears an incredulous laugh that Crowley realises how she sounds, and she pivots on her stool, turning her back to Warlock and the others._

_It’s a nice Friday night at the tail end of September, and after-work drinks sounded like a good idea to Crowley, because the alternative would have been not seeing Zira’s face for the whole weekend._

_It was very much not a date. Which is why Crowley wasn’t at all disappointed when Zira extended the invite to the whole office._

_It’s going… fine. It turns out that she enjoys listening to Zira talk with someone else almost as much as she likes it when they’re talking to one another. The woman is smart and delightfully prissy about a selection of random things (grammar, wine, Olympic figure skating), and, while she holds her alcohol very nicely, each glass tears down another brick in the thick wall of her self-restraint._

_That, and Crowley gets to poke Warlock with her sharp elbows, as he’s sitting on her other side. All in all, she’s having a good time._

_“You don’t read books?” Zira’s cheeks are round like apples, and the mood lighting in the pub makes her look as red as them, too._

_Staring straight in her eyes, Crowley lifts a finger to make her statement more solemn. “Only when I’m paid to do it.”)_

It only takes a glance for Crowley to realise that Anathema’s library is made of the complimentary copies of the books she has worked on, with a few classics thrown in (a comprehensive Baudelaire, too much Shakespeare), possibly for research purposes. Many of them are Cerberus books, including the very first one Beez made Crowley slave on, a paranormal romance revolving around a werewolf orgy.

Now that she’s leaving bad fiction and werewolf orgies behind her, Crowley can afford to be generous, even a bit nostalgic. She takes the book off the shelf, but in doing so dislodges a few sheets of paper that were pushed snugly between the book and the shelf.

As she skims over the back cover copy, remembering how long she agonised over the euphemisms, she bends down to pick up the papers. Her attention is drawn to them when she sees they’re handwritten.

She puts the book back on a shelf without looking at it, staring instead at the wall of blue pen strokes, focusing on the thin, crammed writing, reading the words.

An alarm goes off in her head, so loud her ears start ringing.

Because something about the words is… familiar. But it’s like meeting a professor at the grocery store. Out of context as they are, it takes a few seconds for them to click in Crowley’s brain, to find their match in her memories.

A memory of sitting in her father’s cottage with a blanket on her shoulders and a fake posthumous bestseller in her hands.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: starting from "The door opens with such force that it slams against the wall" until "She slams the door shut behind her", there's a scene in which Crowley fights with her mother about the fact that she's gay, with her mother suggesting that she could just pretend to be 'normal' instead. There are no slurs, but things are tense. In the scene that comes immediately after, Crowley talks to a friend who helps her see that there's nothing wrong with her.
> 
> I'll be honest, pals: this scene is one of the reasons this fic exists, but this story turned out to be so hopeful and sweet that I seriously considered changing my outline and skipping it. I didn't. I think it's important to recognise that sometimes the people who are supposed to love you unconditionally don't, and you can be happy all the same. If something like this happens or has happened to you, first of all: you don't deserve this. Then please reach out to the people who truly love you, talk to a professional, fricking send me a DM if you need to, but don't be afraid to ask for help. Love you.

**Author's Note:**

> Come say hi on [Tumblr](https://mllekurtz.tumblr.com/)!


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